Maya Center Villagers See Breakthrough in Land Dispute Resolution

After days of protesting and seeking assistance, the villagers of Maya Center in the Stann Creek District are getting results for the ongoing land issue. It started over the weekend, when villagers gathered to protest what they said was unfair land distribution and called out Stann Creek West Area Representative Rodwell Ferguson for neglecting their concerns, while conducting works in the development area known as Rodsville. It’s a complicated issue involving the transfer of privately owned land to the government.  The villagers held a press conference today to announce that the issue should be sorted out within the next six months. 

“The village council will submit an affidavit to transfer the land to the Government of Belize to speed up the process. Once the land is officially under Government of Belize the lands department will begin the process of issuing titles of ownership to rightful owners. This formal title issuance process is expected to take approximately six months from the date of transfer. The development represents a major step forward in securing land tenure and legal ownership for the people of Maya Center. It also highlights the importance of transparency, community driven processes backed by strong collaboration between village leadership and national government representatives. I therefore want to reiterate that this land that has been there for so long finally is now reaching its end where the solution will happen in a matter of six months.”

At the conference, Minister Ferguson delved into the history of Maya Center to show that the issue has been a problem for some time. He spoke on some of the next steps being taken to get the villagers their titles. 

“Lo and behold we found out last week that we need to go and resurvey the 35 acres. And so last week we were in the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, most of the village council and myself and he advised us to go and resurvey the 35 acres it will be passed over to the Government of Belize then Government of Belize will in turn pass over to the villagers of Maya Center by title documents. And he agreed that he’s going to pay the cost of the survey. And so right away he asked the Deputy Commissioner Mr.Caal to get in contact with Mr. Lloyd Tingling who is going to do the survey. So Mr.Caal made contact with Mr.Tingling and Mr.Tingling told me about an hour ago or two hours ago that he is going to start the survey bright and early tomorrow morning to survey out the 35 acres. Once that is done then again we now have to proceed with the subdivision. Back then you got a 125 lots so we expect 125 lots with the survey done after we take out the 35 acres. And every time myself and Antonio meet and Mr. Saqui in particular Mr.Saqui reiterates that remember only the original people who got these lots will be the ones to get them whenever the process is completed.”  

We’ll keep following this story.