7 News Belize

John B Not Down With Squatting
posted (June 10, 2020)
Land activist Nigel Petillo has once again pushed squatting to the forefront of the national discourse. It's illegal, and highly frowned upon by people who own land, but those who don't, say it's a necessity for the landless.

Former Minister of National Resources John Briceno ought to have an interesting perspective on this. He ran the lands department for much of the Musa administration between 1998 and 2008.

On Sunday, his national Deputy was out at mile 44 with Nigel Petillo supporting the grassroots land grabber. Today, when asked if he supports this, Briceno, kind of said no:

Hon. John Briceno, PUP Leader
"The issue of squatting has always been there, but it has never been a major issue when we were in government. It did not reach to a point of crisis as we are right now. This is a direct indication that the UDP government has failed the Belizean people in making land available to those that need. I think that we need to look at the issue of land reform, that yes we do agree that there are a lot of people that have a lot of land that they are not putting it to use and that we need to take a comprehensive inventory of the land that is available and then to make sure that if we are going to acquire any land that we can pass over to people we have to ensure that the right people get it, that if you want a piece of land to do agriculture it is because you are going to do agrilcuture."

Reporter
"Are you in support of Nigel Petillo who was encouraging people to squat as we saw Cordel Hyde doing on Sunday?"

Hon. John Briceno, PUP Leader
"As I said that is a reflection of a fail policy of the UDP government."

Reporter
"Where do we stand with the issue whereby it seems as if there is conscious effort by the authorities to thwart that Nigel Petillo and concerned Belizeans seems to want to conduct like we saw on Sunday while Mr. Hyde came out in support of Nigel Petillo and his movement?"

Hon. John Briceno, PUP Leader
"On the first one on the issue of why the government is trying to discourage that kind of Nigel Petillo's, it's simply because if I am in government I will also discourage that kind of behavior. Secondly, you said about our deputy leader Cordel Hyde supporting Nigel Petillo. Well I see it differently. It's not a matter of supporting Nigel Petillo, but it's supporting the process, the needs of the people, that people want land."

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