The Bahamian government is to pay an estimated US$10 million to people whose land had been taken for public use, Attorney General Ryan Pinder has said.
He told the Senate that the Phillip Davis administration would immediately pay the money to “scores” of Bahamians and that successive administrations have failed to compensate landowners for decades.
“As colleagues would know and as I have spoken in this place and Senator Rahming was the one who brought this up over and over that the government owes tens of millions of dollars to Bahamians who had their land taken from them for public use and for government roads and different things that are public use things and have never been compensated for that,” Pinder told legislators.
“I have the assurance and cooperation from the Ministry of Finance that we will put in a proper plan in place to satisfy all arrears owed on property acquisition matters that are largely due to Bahamians across the archipelago.
“In all communities of this country, everywhere that a new road was built, practically there’s a land acquired to do it, and monies are owed to Bahamians for that, and this government will satisfy the decades-old issue of giving the Bahamians what they are constitutionally entitled to receive,” Pinder said without indicating how many landowners are to benefit from the payments.
“No other government before us, regardless of administration, has taken on this initiative to satisfy these claims to Bahamians. Madame president, this new day government will take it on, and we will achieve the goal of satisfying the obligations to those Bahamians,” Pinder said, discussing also the status of the government’s settlement agreement with Arawak Homes and the regularisation of homeowners in Pinewood Gardens.
“This has been a vexing issue for scores of Bahamians. I am pleased to announce that we have been working diligently and now have provided Arawak Homes with completed files for 55 homes to be conveyed to those Bahamians from Arawak Homes.
“We continue to work on it, and there are 43 files remaining that are being reviewed and completed and verified to provide to Arawak Homes to complete this exercise,” he told legislators.
CMC/
