La Isla Bonita is thought to be part of Belize, but if you were to judge by the way land is being 'stronged' and redistributed on the island, you’d think San Pedro is a foreign country not associated in any way with Belize.
The latest controversy which the Area Representative Manuel Heredia finds himself in erupted just this week when angry residents showed up at Reef Radio with copies of their receipts showing that they have paid towards ownership of their land. But those receipts appear to be worthless because the residents found out that their applications to purchase the land have been cancelled or put on hold.
Most of the land where the receipts were made out are in the Colonia San Diego area, about two miles out of town on the northern end. It is mostly swampland but some people have already constructed temporary dwellings in their desperate bid for shelter. Some of their potential neighbours, however, are still waiting, only to be let down when representatives of the Lands Department informed them that their applications had been cancelled despite the payments they’ve made. And they suspect that while their Area Representative, Manuel Heredia, has attached his signature supporting their purchases, he is also the only one who would have any real influence on whether they are granted approval for the purchases. So while many of them did get his support on paper, they feel he went behind their backs and advised the Ministry of Natural Resources to disapprove. There is no proof of this because while the people have copies of their receipts, none has a letter stating that their land has been cancelled. That information has only been given to them verbally when they enquired in Belize City and Belmopan.
The man in the hot seat Manuel Heredia made an appearance on Reef Radio at which point he stated that he was there to address the concerns of the people on the island. That was probably a little difficult, though, since he instructed the technical staff not to take any calls because he was in a hurry.
And later that morning Heredia would admit to a television reporter that his government was cancelling approvals for land distributed to PUP supporters, calling them greedy. Said Heredia to the reporter… “Yes, it is mostly the PUPs that were greedying up everything over here…if they paid for ten pieces, my job is to look into the interests of the other people on the island, you know. We have a lot of young people over here that need land and I said it before, I say it now and I will repeat every time, that it is my job to secure a piece of land for as many young people as we have and we have to acquire it or whatever we have to do, will we do so.”
But the persons whose documents have been cancelled do not fit the description of greedly PUP landholders blithely given by Manuel Heredia. In fact, for these poor San Pedranos nothing could be further from the truth.
One of the persons who asked for anonymity because he was afraid that he would be further victimized has said that he paid in full for his title but has not received his certificate and much to his amazement, when he made checks at the Belmopan Lands office, he discovered that while he had receipts to show for his payments, they had none. In fact, the man said neither the computer system nor the manual one at the Lands Department showed that he had made any payments. To put it candidly, the man said his file at the department was empty. He has since asked the Lands Office to investigate what transpired with his land and more importantly, his payments.
The Belize Times will have more on this late breaking story in our next issue.
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Source: The Belize Times
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