An emergency relocation programme launched five years ago to move 253 households from squatting on a former dump on the outskirts of the Grantley Adams International Airport has all but ground to a halt, with only 32 families resettled and the remainder accusing Government of “political posturing” at their expense.
The exercise, which began in earnest in 2021 at the Rock Hall squatters village, has been on hold with field officers pulled off the job since last December, when the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Housing ordered them to stand down pending an unspecified restructuring.
The Weekend Nation contacted Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Housing, Nicole Johnson, who it is understood is in charge of the Rock Hall relocation project. However, three weeks after the initial contact was made, Johnson has not responded to our queries about the project even though she promised to do so after consultation with the permanent secretary.
However, George Griffith, the former social worker who led a team of field officers through the informal settlement, said he and his staff have been left in limbo alongside the residents they were assigned to help, for the past 11 months.
“Unfortunately, I am not in a position to give you an update because since the 11th of December last year, the permanent secretary said we were not to continue for the time being, that they were going to restructure the project. And to this day, we have not heard whether they have done so or when it will be done.”
He confirmed that all 32 of the houses built under the programme have been allocated at Carpenter’s Glade, Parish Land Extension, in St Philip, and Lead Vale, Christ Church, but described the achievement as “a drop in the bucket” against the original 253-household target.
“The latest information we have is that if people at Rock Hall are interested, those who can afford a mortgage can apply. So we’re waiting to see exactly what the policy of the ministry is going to be.”
For the residents left behind, the wait has turned into anger and a stubborn refusal to leave. Several said they had no intention of moving, whether the airport expansion demands it or not.
“We comfortable – we do not want to move,” one woman declared as she charged that she had not seen any politician or field officers for the past three years.
“The politicians only come out here when they want a vote,” she said. “They only come out here when they want to score political points and talk about relocating us, but we comfortable. We do not want to move.”
Another woman, who moved to Rock Hall 30 years ago and raised children who have since gone through college and into work, was equally defiant.
“We done put things in place, so we comfortable. We got electricity and water and we are comfortable.
I hear the airport is complaining about the houses being here but we are not affecting the airport. The planes do not fly in this direction.
They fly over the new houses in Gemswick (St Philip),” she said, pointing to the new development.
A 20-year-old woman whose entire family lives at Rock Hall rejected the safety rationale outright: “They say we living in a dump, [but] nobody that lives out here has ever been sick from any illness associated with a dump.”
Some said that accepting a mortgage was not the best option for them as they could not afford it.
“You gotta pay for the house, you gotta pay for the land, you getting the house and you gotta pay the mortgage on the house. That is too much.
That is going to put us in debt,” one woman said.
“We clean out the garbage. We make ourselves comfortable.
We have not seen anyone come out here in a while. We have rights too and we do not want to move.
That’s why you can’t come bully us to leave.
We are not looking to get into any debt.”
Back in 2021 Griffith had told the media that Government agreed to a house-swap arrangement where residents would sign over their current dwelling in exchange for a free house on rent-toown land.
The 2019 house-tohouse survey identified 106 households below the poverty line, and the most vulnerable were to be moved first.
He also said at the time that Concordia Garden in St Philip was earmarked to absorb a large share of the relocation.
That policy was later changed and residents were to received a $2 500 grant but had to cover the relocation cost themselves, while any structure erected after February 2020 was excluded from the programme altogether.
But with field officers stood down, Griffith warned that the informal settlement had become “a very fluid situation”, with reports of new buildings in their absence.
“People keep calling us because people have issues, and we speak with them and continue to give them the guidance that we are supposed to give in accordance with the terms and conditions of our contracts. But we are still waiting on the ministry to tell us precisely what will be our role in the future of the project,” he said. (MB)