With the continuous drop in the price of oil, Minister of Land and Marine Resources Jairam Seemungal is assuring that his ministry will not be cutting programmes which generate employment.
He made the statement at yesterday’s post-Cabinet briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair.
Describing his ministry as “very small,” Seemungal added: “ The ministry, being a new ministry, is also a very small ministry. The allocation to the ministry is just about $230-odd million.”
But in areas which cuts could be made Seemungal said those could be taken into consideration.
He added: “I met with the entire staff of the ministry on Monday and we have started looking at areas in which we can, if we have to, cut back on.
“One of the areas we are sure we are not going to cut back on is things which create sustainable employment.”
The fish-landing sites in particular, he said, employed many young people and the ministry would continue to develop those sites.
Speaking on the issue of regularisation programmes Seemungal said the squatter regularisation and land for the landless continued to engage attention.
But the minister maintained if there were areas to cut back that would be done. “These are essential programmes that create living quarters or living communities... households based on their requirement and essentials,” he added. Quoting figures, he said sometimes one community comprised 10,000 squatters and throughout the entire country there were close to 60,000 people illegally living on State lands.
He added: “Applications for the land for the landless alone have reached to 55,000 people.
“In these communities that we have gone into we have also noticed that there could be another 15,000 to 20,000 persons who did not apply for squatter regularisation.
“It is an area in which we will never have enough funding but we will always try to see whatever we can do and what we have done is see how the programme can operate,” Seemungal said.
He said some 115 squatter sites were being surveyed to bring them under the squatter regularisation programme.
“These are the areas we are trying to move money to... seeking the approval for these sites so that we can regularise it and once that is done we will be in a position to regularise some 6,000 to 7,000 persons,” he added.