Bahamian Government To Pay Millions Of Dollars To Landowners

Attorney General Ryan Pinder said government would invest in the “most transformational” change the country’s judicial system has seen since independence. Jun. 30, 2023.

Published 30 June 2023

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The government is to pay an estimated US$10 million to people whose land had been taken for public use

The Bahamas government will pay about $10 million to people whose land has been usurped for public use, Attorney General Ryan Pinder has said.

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Pinder told the Senate that the Phillip Davis administration would immediately pay the money to "scores" of Bahamians and that successive administrations have failed to compensate landowners for decades.

"As my colleagues will know and as I have said here, Senator Rahming was the one who brought this up time and time again, the Government owes tens of millions of dollars to Bahamians who had their land taken from them for public use, for public roads and other things for public use, and they have never been compensated for it," Pinder told lawmakers.

"I have the assurance and the cooperation of the Ministry of Finance that we will put in place a proper plan to satisfy all the arrears owed in property acquisition that are largely due to Bahamians throughout the archipelago.

#BAHAMAS: The government is to pay an estimated US$10 million to people whose land had been taken for public use, Attorney General Ryan Pinder has said. pic.twitter.com/NbfLqWiIT5
— CaribbeanNewsNetwork (@caribbeannewsuk) June 30, 2023

"In every community in this country, wherever a new road is built, there is virtually land acquired to do so, and Bahamians are owed money for it, and this Government will satisfy the decades-old issue of giving Bahamians what they are constitutionally entitled to receive," Pinder said without indicating how many landowners are to benefit from the payments.

"This has been a vexing issue for many Bahamians. I am pleased to announce that we have been working diligently and have now provided Arawak Homes with complete files for 55 homes that will be conveyed to those Bahamians from Arawak Homes.

"We are still working on it, and there are 43 files remaining that are being reviewed and completed and verified to provide to Arawak Homes to complete this exercise," he told lawmakers.