NO ONE should give the impression that illegal squatting was created by the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).Member of Parliament (MP) for St Lucy Denis Kellman made that clear at yesterday’s sitting of the House of Assembly.“Everybody knows that we [the DLP] spoke about this matter for a long time and we had been asking the previous Government to deal with it, and I am saying, Mr Speaker, that this Government will have to find a creative solution to this problem, whether it be squatting or otherwise,” he said.Kellman was responding to concerns about squatting raised by St Thomas MP Cynthia Forde.“Bajans do not need a house. They need land to put the house on it. If you can give that land at a reasonable price, they will build their own houses.“That is why I objected when National Housing Corporation (NHC) went to bed with joint ventures. I said they were robbing the poor people four times.“On the land, NHC had a slice, the contractor had a slice. In relation to the house, NHC had a slice, the contractor had a slice but yet still they gave the impression that the joint ventures were about poor people,” he said.Speaking on a resolution dealing with the compulsory acquisition of two parcels of land at Deacons Road, Kellman said anytimea government was serious about tackling problems on behalf of poor people, they must be given land. Kellman said that after free secondary education, the major obligation to the masses was to “allow them to have a piece of the rock”. He said there were more benefits in putting a road into land that had no houses.“You get more benefits when you put a road into land that has no houses. What you are doing is that you are creating employment and creating opportunities for more houses.“There are a lot of people who believe that you should only put roads where people live. I disagree. We have to start building roads into areas that allow houses to be built.”Kellman said it was important to recognise there was a serious land problem in this country and the only way that it could be solved was by allowing people to help themselves. (MK)
