As the feud between the North Haslington Co-op Society and residents of Enmore North, East Coast Demerara (ECD) intensifies; a resident was on Sunday morning faced with added humiliation when she was locked in her own home by persons claiming to be the new owners of her property.
Nadia Rambarran is living on the property owned by her mother, Yasmattie Rambarran. The plot of land was willed to her by her now deceased uncle, Rango Paul, who was part of the Co-op Society.
At around 10:00h on Sunday morning, she heard loud noises emanating from outside of her house.
Upon inspections, she saw three men nailing her main access door shut, thus trapping her inside. The men then proceeded to erect a fence while the young woman who was unable to exit her house was forced to watch from her window.
The said persons who had on a previous occasion invaded the said house and threw her belongings outside, were later ordered to stop construction as a probe has since been launched into the matter by Minister with responsibility for Labour, Keith Scott.
“The matter is now engaging the Minister of Co-op, Mr Keith Scott, engaging Central Co-op, Ms Gibbs is looking into the matter, and the matters is engaging the Police… yet still they are coming and invading the people premises and making rings around them, threatening remarks, as well as locking them up in their home,” one angered resident who was witnessing the ordeal explained to <<<INews>>>.
It is being reported that following a meeting between Minister Scott and the Chief Central Co-op Officer of Georgetown, it was relayed that the lands of the co-op society are not to be sold but are to be transferred from one generation to the next.
Further, the lands are also not transported lands as it is a block lease and as such, the Enmore residents were never given individual transports.
As such, the Secretary of the Haslington Co-op is engaging in irregularities by selling these lands and issuing individual transports to the buyers.
It was also reported to this publication that the Secretary was in 2014 sanctioned for her actions and was in June of this year invited to a meeting with the Chief Co-op Officer and again sanctioned.
However, following that meeting, the woman reportedly held an emergency meeting with the buyers of the already owned Enmore North lands and encouraged them to dismantle homes and to “put up structures”.
As a result of this, the residents are awaiting a decision by the Labour Ministry but are currently unsure of their next move as they are being targeted on a daily basis.
Attorney Anil Nandlall had stated that he would represent the residents in the High Court if the matter could not be resolved amicably at the level of the Co-op.
As such, Nandlall had visited with the Commander of the area who had promised to dispatch two senior ranks to the area to provide protection for the Enmore residents. However, the protection was never provided for the residents this newspaper was told.
Nandlall had also visited the residents and proceeded to condemn the wrongful actions of the co-op. He is holding out that while the co-op is in a process of redistributing the land, they cannot merely give it to another member while noting that when a person is deceased, the beneficiary is supposed to be given the land.
However, it is not a case whereby the residents were squatting on the land. “That is not what the law says. The law of cooperative society recognises transmission of interest upon death. If a deceased was a member of a co-op, and would’ve been entitled to a plot of land, when that person dies, that interest passes on to the beneficiary of that deceased person,” the former Attorney General stated.
“Those who are administering the co-op ought to recognise that and rather than assign the property to another member of the co-op, they’re supposed to assign it to the beneficiary,” Nandlall detailed.
