The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

IMMIGRATION Minister Elsworth Johnson emphasised the sovereignty of The Bahamas while accusing the United Nations of lacking balance after the organisation assailed government plans to demolish dozens of homes in The Farm shanty town in Abaco.

In a statement released on Friday, the UN said the planned evictions and demolitions are a “serious violation of the human right to adequate housing” and will likely result in increased homelessness and extreme poverty.

In 2018, the Supreme Court granted an injunction protecting shanty town homes in New Providence from destruction pending the outcome of a judicial review challenge over the matter. Government officials, however, have said homes in The Farm and elsewhere are not subject to that injunction.

Mr Johnson said: “The laws that are being enforced have international credence in that every country in which you go into, including European countries, there’s a standard by which we all agree that structures have to be built and they have to be fit for human habitation, especially in Third World countries where we are constantly wrestling with our physical establishments in terms of the way how we have to deal with these things. I hear nothing being said about the ongoing construction and nothing being said to those who have the intention to build in this country.

“We see in Andros, Bahamians are now going and deciding that they are going to clean their own pieces of property because they’re saying that others are coming into the territory and doing as they like. We are a country of laws. We are a sovereign country and so as a country we have determined in accordance with international norms as it relates to which obviously affect women, girls, boys and men that this is how things are to be done and nobody has yet said that our laws and regulations that govern building regulations in The Bahamas fall afoul of international standards.”

The fact that shanty town structures do not adhere to building code regulations is one reason the government has given for demolishing the structures.

Mr Johnson said the international community should take an holistic approach to the matter, adding: “In large part, persons who are building, who have built and who intend to build, a lot of them don’t really want to be in The Bahamas and there are some historical injustices that have been done, especially to Haiti that I think the international community may want to consider and see how we can right the ship in a country that we all love and respect.

“We cannot allow unregulated building anymore. I live in a community where I see unregulated building and I know the harsh realities that are existent in those communities where social services are not readily available and people build.”

The UN’s statement is among the harshest it has written about The Bahamas. Mr Johnson said he is not surprised.

“I see sometimes, and this may not be taken right, people live in their ivory towers, they sit all the way where they are and they seek to cast judgements on Third World countries when what exists in their very own country are these issues,” he said.

“Look at the persons who are crossing over into Europe from Asia and Africa. They’re trying to put them into regulated houses and they don’t have the money to deal with it. The world is facing a large movement. Where is The Bahamas in the context of COVID-19, climate change – which was created by a lot of these European countries and First World countries -– what assistance are they rendering? And you just can’t provide housing to everybody willy-nilly. A country sets its agenda and its budgets to assist those persons who are legally resident and are citizens, not the unexpected persons.”

Mr Johnson criticised the UN for lacking balance in its assessment of the country’s shanty town issue.

“There’s no notice that goes out to those individuals who are constructing irregular construction and those who intend to do it,” he said.

“You’d expect that the UN would say ‘those of you who are now doing it and you have no legal authority, stop because it’s injurious to the country as a whole.’ The Haitian community has said it. You’d expect the UN now to say that for those persons who find themselves in The Bahamas, it’s a sovereign and democratic country governed by laws.

“I think they should go further and look at the propensities that create the impetus for people to move, people who don’t want to move, people who as soon as they get here they work and send their funds back to help their families and to help build a country they love.

“What is the UN saying that is forceful about these situations on the ground in Haiti? What are they saying to governments who have created the socio-political phenomenon that causes Haiti to be the way she is today? What are they really saying about that? What are they saying about the people who are assisting people who are dying on their way to The Bahamas? Is there a message for them? Do they have a message for these people?

“At the end of the day one has to look and see whether or not a country of the size of The Bahamas, with the gross domestic product of The Bahamas, could really withstand what it is they are encouraging, because the extension of this is school, medicine, social assistance; do we have the money to do that? Yet the UN doesn’t comment on that at all.”

In April, the Ministry of Works spearheaded the demolition of 45 “incomplete and unoccupied structures” in The Farm. This came after a joint sting operation in the unregulated community, at which time shanty town residents were told that demolition was imminent for structures that violated the Building Regulations Act.

Last week, Minister of Works Desmond Bannister said the government was ready to continue its actions in the community which could begin as early as today.