Mayor of Falmouth, Collen Gager, says some people are being encouraged to illegally erect shops on private lands in Coopers Pen, Trelawny where several houses were demolished in early August.
He says this is an effort to benefit from government grants.
Gager made the revelation on Nationwide This Morning on Thursday.
Colliecia Wright reports.
Mayor Gager’s revelation follows a protest by several shop owners in the community on Wednesday.
The protest followed notices ordering them to cease construction. The shop owners say they were given 30 days to remove the shops, failing which the structures would be demolished.
The stop notices were issued by the Trelawny Municipal Corporation.
Mayor Gager says the structures in contention were illegally constructed.
According to the order, a person who fails to comply with a stop notice commits an offence and shall be liable to pay a fine of $1.5 million.
Mayor Gager says shop owners descended on the Trelawny Municipal Corporation on Wednesday. He claims they admitted that they were encouraged to hastily erect the structures.
The Falmouth mayor says the shop owners are being deliberately defiant. He told Nationwide’s Tauna Thomas they intend to take a wait-and-see approach instead of removing the structures.
Since the court endorsed demolition to remove the illegal occupiers of privately owned lands Coopers Pen, 19 families who were living under tents have received humanitarian grants valued at $9.9 million from the government. Those cheques were disbursed on Saturday, September 20.
And local government minister, Desmond McKenzie, says the exploitation of the plight of families left homeless by the demolition is unfortunate.
He says there’s a persistent campaign of misinformation around the situation.
Desmond McKenzie, local government minister.
