SAVANNA-LA-MAR — As Westmoreland continues to grapple with the damage left by Hurricane Melissa, Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar and Chairman of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation, Danree Delancy, is calling for urgent national action to address land titlelessness—an issue which he says lies at the heart of the parish’s vulnerability to disasters and entrenched poverty.
The Mayor, who is also councillor for the Bethel Town Division, explained that this reality has led to the widespread use of wooden houses across the cane belt, structures that are easily damaged or destroyed during severe weather events.
“Wooden dwellings run deep in our history. Most of Westmoreland, especially in the plains here, were by and large sugar plantations. And then, the people after the abolition of slavery—the ex-slaves—got no land for themselves, and this has continued right up into the 21st century.
“So you find that people don’t have land for themselves. Most of the time, they rent land or lease land, simply called a house spot,” Mayor Delancy told Negril Times in an exclusive interview.
“If the land is not yours, you cannot put up a permanent structure, even if and when you have the funding to put up something more permanent and something more resilient to catastrophes like hurricanes. You can’t, because you don’t possess the land,” he added.
Delancy said one solution to the widespread use of wooden houses is for the Government to make land available to landless residents in Westmoreland and across the country, noting that the insecurity faced by those without land titles is evident in everyday rural life.
“On a Sunday afternoon, I’m sure you have witnessed tractors and trucks moving a house—a wooden house, because maybe the owner of that house was a tenant on a piece of land, and the owner now needs his land,” he said.
Cycle of Poverty
According to the Mayor, land ownership is not only about housing, but about breaking the cycle of poverty in communities along the former sugar estates.
“The acquisition of land, where you have your title, is one way of helping poor families to escape poverty. If a person owns a piece of land and has the title for that parcel of land, they can in turn take that land title to a financial institution and use it as collateral against a loan – collateral which can be used to start a business; collateral which can be used to pay for the children’s tertiary education, knowing that once these children graduate, they are in a better position to get better-paying jobs. So, it is one avenue out of poverty,” he said.
Pointing out that land tenure insecurity is a recurring issue in cane belt communities across the country, Mayor Delancy added that he had raised the concern previously and was renewing his call for intervention at the highest level.
“I have done so before and I am calling on the ministers again—not just Minister Montague, but also the Prime Minister, and also the Minister of Local Government, among other ministers, because a lot of these lands are owned by government and they fall under different ministries. They fall broadly under the Commissioner of Lands,” he said.
“I have to call upon mainly the Prime Minister in this case. Because, he can have other ministers and ministries do what it takes to have land into the hands of the landless. It has to be expedited. We have to move with haste,” he added.
Reflecting on the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, Delancy said stronger housing would have also significantly mitigated the subsequent financial burden on the Government, as those resources could have instead be redirected toward national development.
“Take what happened with Melissa. If we had more resilient housing, the government wouldn’t have to be finding so much money to pay out to assist persons whose homes have been completely destroyed. If we had more sturdy permanent buildings, then we’d have less houses being destroyed completely,” he explained.
“Thereby, we’d have the government not having to find so much money. It could be placed into other areas where people can get more jobs, or it could even be used to fix up infrastructure like roads and bridges—other things to make life more bearable and more comfortable for the people,” Delancy pointed out.
Compassion and Urgency
Delancy also urged compassion and urgency in addressing informal settlements, particularly on government-owned lands, noting that land ownership would also strengthen government revenues.
“Please, move with alacrity. Move with haste to have people who are out there with no land, especially those who are referred to as squatters. I don’t like the word squatter, really, honestly. People living on lands that they don’t have titles for—especially government lands—try and move speedily to have these people owning these lands,” he re-emphasized.
“Once the land now becomes yours on paper, you’ll be paying taxes, and that is additional revenue for government again. And that’s one way for economic growth,” the Mayor said.
– Claudia Gardner
