Gordon Robinson | Squatting is a national failing!

So the vexed issue of squatting has once again reared its ugly head due to the Government’s demolition of illegal structures near Clifton, St Catherine.

PNP social media trolls are irate, while JLP social media trolls soberly (because no political hack wants to appear insensitive) point to notices that were posted, and the prime minister says criminal gangs are taking over the area, “selling” lots to squatters and terrorising Sugar Company of Jamaica Holdings (SCJ) into doing sweet Fanny Adams about it.

The PNP, desperate for political traction, immediately starts behaving like a dog with a bone, threatening legal action against the Government and generally looking as if, were its leader not touring the UK drumming up political support (read “funding”) from the Jamaican diaspora, he would have willingly thrown his body between the “homes” and the bulldozers.

But as it turns out, it was PNP MP for St Catherine Southern (where the illegal settlement was thriving) Fitz Jackson, who reported the illegal activity to SCJ and then to the PM when his sugar didn’t walk down the street with him. After the demolition, when the PM visited the site to do some politicking (oops, sorry, to “console”), Fitz stood beside him wringing his hands and acting like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

The PNP’s two parties need to get their act together. Did Rise United’s right hand not know what One PNP’s left hand was doing? Why take such an intemperate position from so far away without consulting with both PNPs or at least with the PNP MP for the area?

Maybe if Mark Golding had followed Andrew Holness’ excellent political example (after a bruising 2013 leadership contest) by finding suitable senior posts for his opponents (as Andrew did for Shaw, Vaz, Tufton, et al) instead of leaving them on the periphery, this embarrassing faux pas wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if Mark Golding had taken the PNP’s foreign affairs spokesperson with him instead of Rise United die-hards and ex-perched “neutrals”, he would have a link to quickly knowing what had been done in the PNP’s name before running off at the mouth expelling populist nonsense that might be taxable in New Zealand.

But Mark Golding preferred to take an unelected national security spokesperson and a transport spokesperson (as fillers for photos to look “united”?) on a foreign mission instead of the foreign affairs apokesperson. If there’s a problem with the current foreign affairs spokesperson, shuffle her out and shuffle in a replacement. But again, this is a party in shambolic mode anxious for permanent residence in a Rise United echo chamber, so clear thinking has left town and proactive leadership decision-making avoided at all costs. And this is what happens when a leader allows stop-and-go “resignations” to fester like a bad Festival Song.

A POOL OF VOTERS

It would’ve been more productive (and less awkward) had the PNP done some real investigative work and historical research to put the issue in proper context and to decipher why the anxiety for such abrupt discriminatory action against these squatters vis-a-vis squatter settlements elsewhere. Why are THESE settlers a priority? Why NOW?

How did we get to the stage where a PM is faced with organised crime so out of control that gangs allegedly become town planners and community builders? By now we should be sleeping with our windows and doors open!

Squatter settlements, including on “reserved” lands, aren’t new. Squatters have taken over some of the most sensitive government lands and built huge concrete structures which immediately disqualify them from any “poor and vulnerable” category. Governments have known about this for decades and have actively encouraged it because these settlements provide votes that are vital in Jamaica’s first-past-the-post electoral farce.

The chaos at Mona Commons is one of the worst examples. Politicians have bleated about this since Whoppi kill Phillup. Relocation has been offered. The squatters have stood firm. Not one bulldozer has visited them. Why? Is there no private developer standing by to build high-rise apartments there?

Many moons ago, in one of my rare forays into the criminal courts, I defended a corporate client that was the first to be prosecuted under the much-ballyhooed Anti-Litter Law for allegedly dumping construction rubble in the Greenwood wetlands. During my standard site visit, I was appalled to see the massive concrete structures erected on the same wetlands without a peep from the authorities. The case was thrown out at the stage of No-Case Submission (nothing to do with the squatters), but I never forgot that si(gh)t(e), some of which is now a road paved by a Government now enforcing the law against a select few Clifton squatters.

Squatting. Is. A. National. Failing!

It’s a failing over 60 years of governments focused on elusive economic “growth” by favouring a construction industry that desecrates Jamaica’s environment; overburdens its creaking water, road, and sewage infrastructure; destroys the character of many residential neighbourhoods; and lines the pockets of a few “developers” often of laundromats masquerading as offices while ignoring the need for equity in land and home ownership.

It’s a monumental failure of the National Housing Trust, created to address this imbalance but instead operates as a profit-making centre, denying too many contributors hope of home ownership while building high/middle-income complexes excluding all purchasers but an elite few. The NHT is a trust that should be subsidising homes for the poor, NOT a money-grubbing producer of surpluses to be raided by the Consolidated Fund.

NO ACCIDENT

This is no accident. Governments have always known what they were doing. In 1998, Danny Melville, then MP for North East St Ann, made his maiden contribution to the Sectoral Debate. He bemoaned his inability to provide significant road improvements or water supplies for constituents:

“How can I? The budgetary allocation for members of Parliament for the entire year cannot construct 25 yards of the Ocho Rios bypass. I am reduced to begging the relevant agencies for attention to areas such as Buckfield, Content Garden, Great Pond, Lime Hall, Beecher Town, St Ann’s Bay, and Exchange and then awaiting their pleasure.

I’ve seen Steer Town residents live three generations in one yard in Godstow and Dam Head, waiting with the sort of disciplined patience only country people can command only to see relocated squatters from elsewhere put on land immediately adjacent. No similar provision has ever been made for them.

I’ve seen residents of Musgrave Street in St Ann’s Bay (known as ‘the Ghetto’) living there for 30 years, paying rent for squalid tenements in circumstances which bring Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry to mind, while squatters are settled on National Heritage Trust land at neighbouring Seville.

In 30 years, I have seen the tiny village of Ocho Rios turn into an unplanned and unruly town and other nearby villages of Pimento Walk, Snow Hill, and Parry Town so engulfed by squatters that they have become one sprawling melting pot with little or no supporting infrastructure.

And the problem can be resolved if only we have the will to solve it. The Jamaica Bauxite Mining Company has thousands of acres of idle land surrounding Ocho Rios, which could be subdivided and sold to persons deserving of consideration. We need action now from the Ministry of Housing and Environment to deal with the squatting and related environmental problems before it is too late.”

Nineteen. Ninety. Eight!

ENCOURAGE SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS

Since then, governments have done zip-a-dee-doo-da except to encourage squatter settlements. So pardon me if I don’t buy this sudden government concern about an alleged gang-created settlement at Clifton. What’s new? A horse racing pal would say “sump’n inna sump’n!”

This Clifton kerfuffle is another manifestation of Jamaicans’ undereducation for 50 years and how creeping corruption has become an Olympic Event promoted by the current governance system. In our first-past-the-post system, the Government can do as it likes. What little a decimated Opposition in a lop-sided Parliament can do is dissipated by its own insistence on committing political seppuku by constantly running around in ever-decreasing circles until it inevitably disappears up its own rear-end.

So the Government wakes up in the midst of an island-wide squatter problem and suddenly decides to make an example of THIS squatter settlement. The PNP MP for the constituency supports the selective law enforcement while the PNP leader threatens an absurd lawsuit.

Is this the Back-o-wall template in action? Is there a big housing developer standing by, or will this strip of “reserved” land be put into agriculture as promised? Or is THAT another comfort for fools? Who will occupy any new housing development on or near the site? How will THAT affect voters’ lists in South St Catherine? What will happen to these settlers? Or will the Government’s attitude be, as was Seaga’s in 1963, “I don’t care where they go. They got notice.”

Peace and Love!

- Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.