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Les lignes de bus du réseau SudLib restent fortement perturbées. Unité Sud Transport s’explique.

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422 mots – 16.10.2022

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Opposition Leader Mark Golding has vowed to make representation to the relevant Government agencies on behalf of residents who are scheduled to be evicted from lands in Pleasant Hill, Lluidas Vale in rural St Catherine.

“… We will proceed to make representation on your behalf with the relevant Government agencies, and if necessary, the prime minister himself, to sort this thing out on your behalf, because it can’t go any further than it has already gotten,” Golding told concerned residents on Friday.

The citizens have built homes on the lands which were reportedly originally leased from Worthy Park Estates by their fore parents some 50 years ago.

However, the residents were served with eviction notices by the Commissioner of Lands on October 6, informing them that they have until December 6 to relocate from the area.

“The reason for requiring you to cease occupation, vacate and deliver up possession of and remove any fencing and/or temporary structure(s) erected on the said property is that you are in illegal possession of property, which is owned by the Commissioner of Lands,” the notice stated.

It continued: “If you fail to cease occupation, vacate and deliver up possession of the said property as required under the terms of this notice, you will be forcibly evicted,” the notice further advised.

Interestingly, the letters were served the same day illegal housing structures were demolished on agricultural lands in the community of Clifton in the Greater Bernard Lodge Development Area.

Since the delivery of the notices, coupled with the demolition of the houses in Clifton, residents in Pleasant Hill in Lluidas Vale have been left uneasy, as they do not know where they stand relative the lands they currently occupy.

Further, they are worried about where they will now move to, having invested their livelihoods on building their homes.

Golding, who, along with several other members of the leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP), met the residents on Friday, said he did not understand the rationale behind issuing the notices, as the residents have indicated their willingness to realise their ownership of the land.

“I do not understand what is the thinking behind these notices. It doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t see why the Government would want to do such a thing,” Golding said, reiterating that the Opposition PNP will be making enquiries about the notices.

He warned that if necessary, the Opposition will also take “other forms of action, because a land owner cannot stand by and watch people put their blood, sweat and tears and all their earnings investing in houses, and when the houses are in an advanced stage, (they) come and say, ‘Oh, well,

The PNP president advised the residents that they may have to pay for the land, to which the residents responded in unison that they have no problem in doing so.

“It is frankly unbelievable that a Government agency would treat a community – 65 families – in such a way, out of the blue to serve them notices at a time when things are so hard anyway and life is so tough with prices being high…,” declared Golding.

“… This is a community that has been here for many, many years and the people are born and grow here…,” said Golding, who was then interrupted by a female resident.

She told him that, “It is ancestral land…

“We already pay fah with blood sweat and tears from our great grandparents to our grantparents to our parents then now to me, then now to my children – that is five generations!” she insisted.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness reacted in Parliament on Tuesday to the issues relative to the pendin in the House, Phillip Paulwell, questioned him on the eviction notices that were received by the residents.

“I’ve seen the issue for Lluidas Vale. It is totally coincidental. It has nothing to do with this (the demolition of unfinished housing houses in Clifton),” Holness stated.

According to him, the National Land Agency (NLA), Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) and other agencies of Government that own a registry of lands, “from time-to-time go about regularising and rectifying communities that are irregularly settled.”

Holness said it was unlikely that persons will be thrown off the lands in Pleasant Hill.

“There is no coordination at this time to have any mass rectification of irregular settlements.

“However, based upon what has happened, I think it is quite timely that we take a serious look at this, and any engagement like that would obviously have to have enough time, public engagement, and we would have to provide the alternatives for people,” said Holness.

There have been reports by residents of Pleasant Hill that they have tried to get titles for the land in the past, but were not successful.

Holness has vowed to take a stand against what he referred to as land grabs island-wide, and the acquiring of Government lands for illegal housing by residents and criminals locally.

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LONDON (AP) — When Liz Truss was running to lead Britain this summer, an ally predicted her first weeks in office would be turbulent.

But few were prepared for the scale of the sound and fury — least of all Truss herself. In just six weeks, the prime minister’s libertarian economic policies have triggered a financial crisis, emergency central bank intervention, multiple U-turns and the firing of her Treasury chief.

Now Truss faces a mutiny inside the governing Conservative Party that leaves her leadership hanging by a thread.

Conservative lawmaker Robert Halfon fumed on Sunday that the last few weeks had brought “one horror story after another.”

“The government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra, ultra free-market experiments,” he told Sky News.

It’s not as if the party wasn’t warned. During the summertime contest to lead the Conservatives, Truss called herself a disruptor who would challenge economic “orthodoxy.” She promised she would cut taxes and slash red tape, and would spur Britain’s sluggish economy to grow.

Her rival, former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, argued that immediate tax cuts would be reckless amid the economic shockwaves from the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

The 172,000 Conservative Party members — who are largely older and affluent — preferred Truss’ boosterish vision. She won 57% of members’ votes to become leader of the governing party on Sept. 5. The next day, she was appointed prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II in one of the monarch’s final acts before her death on Sept. 8.

Truss’ first days in office were overshadowed by a period of national mourning for the queen. Then on Sept. 23, Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng announced the economic plan he and Truss had drawn up. It included 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts — including an income tax reduction for the highest earners — without an accompanying assessment of how the government would pay for them.

Truss was doing what she and allies said she would. Libertarian think-tank chief Mark Littlewood predicted during the summer there would be “fireworks” as the new prime minister pushed for economic reform at “absolutely breakneck speed.”

Still, the scale of the announcement took financial markets, and political experts, by surprise.

“Many of us, wrongly, expected her to pivot after she won the leadership contest in the way many presidents do after winning the primaries,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “But she didn’t do that. She actually meant what she said.”

The pound plunged to a record low against the U.S. dollar and the cost of government borrowing soared. The Bank of England was forced to step in to buy government bonds and prevent the financial crisis from spreading to the wider economy. The central bank also warned that interest rates will have to rise even faster than expected to curb inflation that is running at around 10%, leaving millions of homeowners facing big increases in mortgage payments.

Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, said Truss and Kwarteng made a series of “unforced errors” with their economic package.

“They shouldn’t have made their contempt for economic institutions quite so clear,” she said. “I think they could have listened to advice. And I think one of the things that they got very wrong was

As the negative reaction grew, Truss began to abandon bits of the package in a bid to reassure her party and the markets. The tax cut for top earners was ditched in the middle of the Conservative

It wasn’t enough. On Friday, Truss fired Kwarteng and replaced her longtime friend and ally with Jeremy Hunt, who served as health secretary and foreign secretary in the Conservative governments of David Cameron and Theresa May.

At a brief, downbeat news conference, the prime minister acknowledged that “parts of our mini budget went further and faster than markets were expecting.” She reversed a planned cut in corporation tax, another pillar of her economic plan, to “reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline.”

Truss is still prime minister in name, but power in government has shifted to Hunt, who has signalled that he plans to rip up much of her remaining economic plan when he makes a medium-term budget statement on Oct. 31. He has said tax increases and public spending cuts will be needed to restore the government’s fiscal credibility.

Still, Hunt insisted Sunday: “The prime minister’s in charge.”

“She’s listened. She’s changed. She’s been willing to do that most difficult thing in politics, which is to change tack,” Hunt told the BBC.

The Conservative Party still commands a large majority in Parliament, and — in theory — has two years until a national election must be held. Polls suggest an election would be a wipeout for the Tories, with the Labour Party winning a big majority.

Conservative lawmakers are agonising about whether to try to replace their leader for a second time this year. In July, the party forced out Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who led them to victory in 2019, when serial ethics scandals ensnared his administration.

Now many of them have buyer’s remorse about his replacement. Under party rules, Truss is safe from a leadership challenge for a year, but some Conservative legislators believe she can be forced to resign if the party can agree on a successor. Defeated rival Sunak, House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt and popular Defense Secretary Ben Wallace are among the names being

Junior Treasury minister Andrew Griffith argued Sunday that Truss should be given a chance to try to restore order.

“This is a time when we need stability,” he told Sky News. “People at home are just tearing their hair out at the level of uncertainty. What they want to see is a competent government getting on with (the) job.”

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press

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