A potential firestorm is brewing between the Government and some former sugar workers in Golden Grove, St Thomas.

The sugar workers were not allowed temporary access to the new housing units at Stokes Hall to minimise the after-effects of Hurricane Matthew which, at the time, posed a threat to the island.

The workers are demanding that the Government explain why some persons were given access to the units two Fridays ago, while others were left to “suffer” in less than ideal conditions.

“The house dem belong to us. When Portia [Simpson Miller] was prime minister we got letters inviting us to the ground-breaking ceremony. If we were not supposed to get any of the houses we would not be invited,” one angry resident told the Jamaica Observer North & East last Thursday.

“There are houses up there with no one in them, yet we are forced to stay here while other people get to stay in theirs,” another resident, who said she had signed up for a two-bedroom unit with her brother, added.

The residents said that they had been summoned to several meetings prior to the threat of Hurricane Matthew to discuss getting the units, the titles for which theysaid they paid $40,000 for, but were always told to wait.

Discussions have been in the pipeline since 2008 they said. The houses are being provided free of cost to the residents.

“We a somebody too, why some get and some don’t get? It nuh fair. Me go up there go look on the one-bedroom weh my mother get and me nuh see nothing wrong with it. Maybe the floor little bit rough and whatever, but that is it. What up there is minor something to fix. Them tell me dem have a sewage problem. It can’t be fixed?” one woman said.

“My question is why dem put dem up there in the first place and we normally have a shelter to go? We normally use St Thomas Technical as a shelter,” she said.

The woman said she was told that the Government was not responsible for whatever they left at the barracks if they agreed to be temporarily housed in the units, so a few people opted to stay to prevent looting.

“We a wait pon dem. Dem seh dem inna one meeting a process and they are coming tomorrow (last Friday), so we are waiting on them,” she said.

In another twist, residents who were given access to units are maintaining that they will not move back to the barracks.

“Dem have a little meeting around there so yesterday (last Wednesday) but we still decide say we not giving them back the key.

“If we give dem back the key when we going get it back?” Stanley Thompson, who moved into a one-bedroom unit, told the Observer North and East.

“A long time we a wait pon dem yah,” he insisted.

Hyacinth Ward stressed that she would not be returning the keys she had been given because she had nowhere else to go.

“Mi move from there come here, but me can’t really move go back down because I don’t really have a house. Me is a little pensioner, mi don’t have anywhere fi go. A di truth me a tell you friend,” Ward said.

Sylvia Smith, another beneficiary of a unit, said the barracks were not even fit for animals to live in and insisted that she could not move back to hers.

“Mi would like fi show you the conditions down there. Mi don’t have any facility for mi granddaughter to use; it shameful,” she said.

Agriculture Minister Karl Samuda on Thursday last met with stakeholders in the project — including Member of Parliament Dr Fenton Ferguson, councillor for the Dalvey Division, Michael McLeod; a team from the St Thomas Parish Council; as well as officials from the Ministry of Health and members of the engineering and construction teams and arranged a tour of the housing scheme on Friday (October 7) in an attempt to assess what needed to be done.

He stressed the importance of ensuring that the official handover of the newly constructed houses be conducted in a manner that is as comfortable as possible for the residents, even while ensuring the speedy completion of outstanding works at the housing estate.

The units are currently without running water, electricity and a completed sewer system.

Samuda said 120 residents were moved into the units. One hundred and forty-five units were constructed.