Not our fault!

While successive governments have been “somewhat tardy” in paying compensation to those who it compulsorily acquires land from, a government minister maintains it is not intentional.

So says Minister of Housing, Lands and Rural Development, George Payne. Yesterday morning as he led off the debate on a resolution to compulsorily acquire two parcels of land at Harrismith, St. Philip for housing and tourism development, Minister Payne said that the current administration is endeavouring to ensure that as soon as possible after an acquisition that the relevant settlement is done.

Payne suggested that in 50 per cent of these cases of delay, the delay or the failure of Government to pay has not been as a result of any negligence or delinquence on the part of Government, but rather the landowners holding out for a large amount of money. He referred to a case of one landowner, who over five successive years disputed a valuation of $4 million on the land for the purpose of land tax, arguing the land was only valued at $2 million, but he said when Government sought to acquire the property, they insisted that it was worth $39 million.

“The public out there sometimes believes that Government purposely decides that they are going to, or rather arbitrarily take away somebody’s land and then they don’t want to pay them... In most cases, the difficulty or failure of Government to pay compensation is because of the fact that the landowner has refused to accept the sums which the Government has advanced. And Government don’t come up with an arbitrary figure, the Land Acquisition Act is fairly clear,” he stated.

He made the point while noting that Government only goes the route of compulsory acquisition when negotiations have broken down. He said sometimes negotiations are ongoing for as long as two years.

“Sometimes you think you have an agreement and then at the last minute there is a change,” he lamented.

He went on to say that in many cases where they believe an agreement is reached and they pay money into the court to cover the compensation, the money is not claimed. He said Government has paid millions of dollars into the court for acquisitions and the owners have refused to collect the money.

Payne said in total Government owes $136 million for acquisitions, which he said are monies agreed to by the parties and assessed by the Barbados Revenue Authority as monies outstanding. He said under the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Programme, there are certain arrangements where Government’s contingent liabilities can be settled, but he said they cannot do so in respect of the acquisitions because the parties cannot come to a final agreement. (JRT)