Faster access to land titles for bauxite-displaced families

Families who have been relocated because of mining operations and have had to wait decades to gain a title to their new location are now benefiting from a speedier process implemented by Mining and Transport Minister Robert Montague, using a decades-old piece of legislation.

Last week in Brown’s Town, St Ann, from a total of 25 titles readied under this new process, five persons collected land titles after being relocated by Noranda Bauxite. Come 2022, an additional 400 titles are to be prepared and handed over to other persons similarly affected by mining operations.

This would represent further success for Montague as he seeks to “right a historic wrong” in which displaced persons were unable to benefit from getting titles to their land.

“What is significant about the five is that this represents a new thrust in how we’re going to deal with titles for Jamaicans in the bauxite industry,” Montague had declared last week as he handed over the titles.

Montague said when he became mining minister in 2018, he was presented with a file that showed that around 3,700 persons were due titles, some as far back as 1953.

“We have denied many families, since 1952, the privilege of having their names written in the book of titles and I have decided that I am going to correct that historic wrong,” he added.

The minister has established a Bauxite Land Titling Committee chaired by JC Hutchinson, “because we are determined to make sure Jamaicans get their titles”.

The committee has revisited the Bauxite and Alumina Industries (Special Provisions) Act of 1977, which speaks to issues concerning land and titles as it relate to the bauxite sector and persons displaced by mining operations.

CORRECTING HISTORIC WRONG

“We are trying to correct a historic wrong because the people have been suffering, having given up their lands,” Montague reiterated in an interview on Wednesday.

“When I examined the act, I realised it was never designed to help the ordinary Jamaican but rather to help the (bauxite) companies. However, closer examination of Section 5 gives the minister a little leeway, and that is what we are using to assist and to speed up the process of generating titles for these persons. We have tested it and it works,” Montague pointed out.

The act basically gives the minister the power to vest land to persons who have been displaced by mining operations. With this authorisation, titles are able to be processed more speedily.

Section 5 of the Bauxite and Alumina Industries (Special Provisions) Act states, among other things, that the minister (with responsibility for mining) may declare any property transferred to and vested to persons affected by mining operations, and suggests that the process cannot be hindered by any other process.

With the minister using this piece of legislation as guide and willing to vest properties as soon as the bauxite companies do the necessary documentation, it means that the over 3,000 titles that have been outstanding for decades may soon reach the hands of deserving owners.

A title, according to Montague, is basically a tool to generational wealth as persons may use the document to access funding to invest or to use otherwise, as necessary.

“A title, in my view, is the basis in building generational wealth and to right a historic wrong; for too long people have suffered and everybody else is happy and everybody else is making money except the ordinary poor persons who have to suffer,” Montague argued.

Last week, 35-year-old Kevon McHugh, who was by far the youngest of the five persons to collect their titles, expressed delight at being able to get his document in hand. McHugh told The Gleaner the title meant a start for him, as he had lots of things to take care of.