NASSAU — Minister of Labour Dion Foulkes, who chairs the Shantytown Action Task Force (SATF), said yesterday that he is slated to meet with leaseholders of shantytown land this week to inform them of the way forward, the Nassau Guardian reported on May 23.
The government has already announced a July 31 deadline mandating residents of shantytowns to evacuate all unregulated buildings.
“We had the meeting last week with the leadership of the Bahamian/Haitian community,” Foulkes said, outside of Cabinet. “This week, I am meeting with the leaseholders of the land. All of the shantytowns are located on land that have the legal vested right in Bahamians and I want to meet with them to basically give them notice of what we are doing and give them an opportunity to rectify the situation.”
Asked whether the government has decided what will happen to the land that those shantytowns are on, Foulkes said, “No. There hasn’t been any decision at this point, but they are all legally leased to Bahamians.”
The New Providence Shantytown Assessment Report, 2018, was released by Foulkes last week. The report found that 1,410 people reside in those communities.
In total, 428 households were assessed. The report shows that the Carmichael constituency has the largest representation (44 percent) of such households, followed by Golden Isles (31 percent) and then Elizabeth (25 percent).
The average shantytown household size is 3.3 people.
