Attorney General Anil Nandlall has explained that the government’s proposed amendments to the Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes Act will not infringe on citizens’ rights to adequate and prompt compensation for their private properties, should they be compulsorily acquired by the State.
On Monday, the government tabled the Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes Amendment Bill.
During his weekly programme ‘Issues in the News’ on Tuesday, Nandlall used the forum to “assure members of the public and property owners across this country that our government will never pass any type of legislation that will affect the private propriety interests of people of this country in a manner not provided for by the constitution of our country.”
“…because private property is strongly protected by our constitution as a fundamental right,” he noted.
Nandlall explained that in its present form, the law is being interpreted that the State cannot get possession of a private property unless compensation is agreed and fully paid. But he contends that “that could never have been the intention of the legislation.”
He explained that if a project of national importance is to be undertaken and 50 private properties have to be compulsorily acquired and all but one property owner has agreed to the compensation being offered by the State, the public project cannot be stalled because of an individual citizen.
“All we’re doing is adding where it says that the title shall vest in the State subject to the payment of compensation, we’re adding these words, “but without prejudice to the State’s right to vacant possession of the land”. That is all that we’re adding,” Nandlall said.
This means, “in the unlikely event there is a disagreement and compensation cannot be agreed upon, then the court will determine it, but in the meanwhile, the State must have possession of the place so that the public project, the project of national importance, cannot be stalled because of one person or two persons disputing compensation,” he added.
In further emphasising the need for this amendment, the Attorney General explained under the current law, if a legal battle goes all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice to determine compensation, then the public project can be stalled for years.
“Imagine for a moment the Demerara Harbour Bridge being stalled for five-ten years and the lives of 750,000 people are being affected because one person has a case in the (court),” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, the amendments to the law also include the inclusion of the phrases ‘adequate compensation’ which must be paid ‘promptly’.
Another change is to allow the subject minister to pay in advance up to 80 per cent of the compensation being offered by the State while the court determines the balance, in cases where private property owners have mounted legal challenges.
“Under the current law, if the parties cannot agree to the payment, the minister can issue to the land owner some type of bond as adequate compensation while the matter is being determined by the court. The current law doesn’t say that the minister must give money,” Nandlall explained.
He assured that the government will not abuse the law once amended, noting that there are case law authorities that outline that if the land acquired was not used for the public purpose for which it was acquired, it must go back to the original owner.
According to the Attorney General, under the Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte regimes, “large swaths of land were compulsorily acquired but were never used for the purpose for which they were acquired and people have gone to court and gotten back their lands.”
He also reminded that under those administrations, the government used to pay compensation at a 1939 market value. Nandlall explained that it was the People’s Progressive Party government that changed the law to introduce compensation at current market value.
In recent history, the government moved to acquire some 50 properties to facilitate construction of the Demerara River Bridge, 12 for the Schoonord to Crane Highway and about 70 for the Gas-to-Energy Project. Of these over 130 private properties, Nandlall said only about a handful are in litigation over disagreements regarding compensation.
