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And the other big news coming out of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting was government’s decision to cancel the lease granted to businessman Jitendra Chawla for the 9 acres he’s developing in the Krooman Lagoon Public Reserve. Chawla has spent more than half a million dollars filling the 9.3 acres on which he planned to establish a plantain chips factory. But after public outcry, including a very vocal Collet Area Representative Patrick Faber, yesterday Cabinet voted to reverse the decision of the Ministry of Natural Resources to lease the land to Chawla. According to a Cabinet release, the assurance given to Chawla was done in ignorance and that every effort will be made to preserve the land for the people of Collet. Today Prime Minister Dean Barrow told me that a mistake was made on government’s part but that Chawla isn’t without blame. According to Barrow, Chawla didn’t have the proper permits.

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize
“Because we were presented with the project document that in fact speaks to the Krooman Lagoon area as part of the whole Southside poverty alleviation project and that document showed two things; that the Krooman Lagoon and the immediate surrounding area under the project was to have been preserved as a kind of nature reserve and number two, a kind of network of canals would have been constructed in the area that would assist in draining in Collet, in Port Loyola and Lake I. If Mr. Charles were to have been given title for the portion of land that he had already filling, that would have violate both objectives. The objectives of creating a nature reserve and the objective of doing the network of canals that would assist with draining in the three constituencies that I mentioned.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“So if you already had these two objectives in place, it sounds like you have a situation here where the left hand no know what the right hand is doing. Who gave the assurances to Jack Chawles?”

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“The Ministry of Natural Resources and you are perfectly correct, you can’t get away from accepting when a mistake has been made or when an action has been taken in ignorance. Obviously the Ministry of Natural Resources was not aware of the details of the Southside poverty alleviation project as so far as it is related to the Krooman Lagoon. I will tell you that their ministry is of the view that you could have development in a way that would still be consistent in every overall objective but a precondition of such development would be the construction of now an additional canal apart from the network of canals that’s already provided for under the project and that would cost the government a great deal of money. We decided then as a Cabinet, no let us be consistent with the original project objectives which objectives are already funded or potentially funded as a consequence of the progress of the Southside alleviation project and that’s how we are going.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“And speaking about costing the government a considerable amount of money obviously, I do not have the final figure but Jack Chawles did spend a lot of money in preparing this land for whatever business he was intending to use it for. Will he be compensated and how will that be done?”

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“Yes, we will certainly have the Ministry of Natural Resources speak to him but I need to point out two things. We are sympathetic to Mr. Chawles and as a businessman he cannot be allowed to make that sort of expenditure without being allowed to recoup any of it but he didn’t have title, he nevertheless went ahead and filled, he didn’t have the relevant permits. Even if he had a title, because of the sensitivity of the area, because of the fact that it is in a reserve, because you are dealing with a lagoons and mangroves and that sort of thing, there was a need for permits to have been obtained.

Again I believe Mr. Chawles acted in ignorance of those requirements when he started to fill. To some extent then he is not entirely without responsibility for proceeding without making absolutely sure the basis on which he was proceeding as well as I believe some piles had begun to be driven. There was a need for permits from the central building authority or from the local building authority. Those permits had not been obtained so all of this will have to be factored in to the amount of compensation that he and the government will be able to agree and I am not trying to make a case for the government to pressure the man in an effect say well we do not need to give you anything but token compensation because ninety percent of what happened is your fault.

No, we await to try and arrive at fair compensation but I need to make the point that if a mistake was made on the part of the government as it was admittedly was, mistakes were also made by Mr. Chawles so we will have to sit down and try to be reasonable and try to see how we can arrive at what would be an equitable solution to the difficulty that has been created.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“How will these two parcels of land now be used? I mean it has already been filled, I do not even know if it can be considered a reserve anymore.”

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“Well it is a reserve, it is formerly and there has been no de-reservation to the extent that some of the filling actually encroaches in the lagoon we will have to do some remedial work and that’s a problem. I am not sure of the Ministry of Works will now go back on the site. Their first assessment was in order to tell us exactly what the situation was from the information point of view. Now they will go back and report to us on the kind of remedial work that will be necessary. As to whether it can put things back in the stet that it was before, I am not sure and I would guess they can’t but you must try as far as possible remedy whatever damage have been done accepting that some damage has been done and that is what the Ministry of Works will advise us on.”

Chawla today declined to comment.