ST JOHN’S – The Gaston Browne led administration over 100 Barbudans have indicated their willingness to purchase lands on Barbuda.
The government said his comes on the heels of the recently-passed Barbuda Land Amendment Act (2017), “giving born-Barbudans or Barbudans by parentage, the right to purchase their household plots for as low as one dollar”.
According to Chief of Staff of the Antigua and Barbuda Cabinet, Lionel Max Hurst, “over 100 Barbudans have indicated in writing their willingness to accept the offer”.
Hurst, a former Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United Nations, said a request was made from a Barbudan to acquire a lease with the option to purchase the land on which he lost his hotel property after destruction caused by Hurricane Irma on September 5, 2017.
In a nation-wide address Browne said that the recently-passed bill, “will unlock the economic potential of the land that had laid fallow for centuries and will provide the citizens of Barbuda with significant economic opportunities, which hitherto, they were denied”.
He had previously said that his government “seeks to develop Barbuda the right way”.
Hurst said that “more signed expressions of interest will be gathered by the time the Barbuda Land (Amendment) Act 2017 is gazetted and a date is published for its effective commencement”.
After passage in Parliament earlier this year, the bill was sent to the Upper House last week, where it was debated and passed, the statement said.
In early January, a Guyanese-born author of several books on African and African Diaspora history, said the people of Barbuda were not only struggling to recover from the devastation that was brought to the island by Hurricane Irma, but they were also fighting to retain the collective ownership of their land.
“This is a system that has been in place since the abolition of slavery on the island and is currently being threatened by the government of Antigua and Barbuda,” said Dwayne Wong (Omowale), a contributor for the Huffington Post.
“Prime Minister Gaston Browne has argued that, in order to rebuild Barbuda and to improve the island’s economy, it is necessary to change this law.
“The people of Barbuda are concerned that they will lose the control of their land, so that Barbuda can be developed into an island for mass tourism, much as Antigua has been,” added Wong (Omowale), writing under the caption, “Barbuda and the Land Issue in the Caribbean.” (CMC)
