MONTEGO BAY, St James — Opposition spokesman on citizen security and productivity Senator Peter Bunting has assured occupiers of sections of land at Bogue Industrial Estate in Montego Bay that they will be given a chance to buy the land at a fair price if the People’s National Party (PNP) forms the next Government.

“I am confident that we will not be sitting here in one year’s time having this discussion because we don’t have to wait on parish council. We will not have to wait because the minister of housing is a corporation … and he can take over this community and do what is necessary to ensure that the current occupants and those that’ll be here for decades get justice, in terms of their tenure,” he said.

Bunting’s comments came during a business forum on Jamaica’s economic growth hosted by PNP caretaker for St James West Central Dr Andre Haughton. The long-standing Bogue lands issue was among items on the agenda.

“What I can confidently commit is that when time come, this will be a priority for the parliamentarians in St James, not just from St James West Central but from [the entire] St James. It will be a priority for the Government and it will be a priority for Prime Minister Mark Golding,” Bunting assured, in response to queries and concerns from the gathering of mainly business owners.

The issue has been a sore point for decades and has become a political football. In 2017, then Montego Bay Mayor Homer Davis vowed that the matter would be resolved under his watch. The proposal, at the time, was for roughly 26 lots occupied by commercial squatters to be sold to them, bringing in $500 million in revenue to the municipal corporation’s coffers.

On Wednesday, businesswoman Lydia Thompson-Barrett was among those who appealed to Bunting for help.

“We have been trying, over the years, to get ownership of the area where we do business. Everybody on the lots here do different types of business — from tourism, transportation, construction, all of this — because it is an industrial estate,” she said.

“We are asking and we have been asking that something be done,” she appealed.

Thompson-Barrett said because of the lack of tenure, it has been challenging to get banks to do business with them and even plans submitted to the municipal corporation have been rejected.

“The only thing that is not thrown through the window is the monthly or the termly rent that we send. They accept that because they say, ‘It’s our land; you must pay to stay on the land.’ So we do send in money to the parish council,” she said.

“I think it’s more like, ‘Let them pay, let them pay because once we get this land out of our hands, then there is nothing more to get.’ And so, that is a big issue — tenure and the ability to go to financial institutions and get financing for your business,” Thompson-Barrett continued.

In his response Bunting said the PNP is well aware of the need to change how things are done as it has seen the challenges that arise from informal arrangements.

“We are crippling our potential for economic growth by not dealing with this issue frontally and urgently. I can speak with authority on this because I know it is one of the issues that the leader of the Opposition is most passionate about,” he declared.

“He has the training and the experience as… a leading commercial lawyer in this country to put mechanisms in place to deal with it as a matter of priority when we come to office later this year,” Bunting continued.

A general election is constitutionally due by this September.

Bunting also gave an assurance that a PNP-led Government would ensure that the occupiers pay a fair price for the lands.

“Our primary purpose is to be the voice of those who are the small and medium business persons, the small and medium professionals, the ordinary Jamaicans who have traditionally been at a disadvantage in a whole set of… structural ways,” he said.

“We talk about persons who have occupied commercial lots in Bogue Industrial Estate for 15 years, for 20 years, for 25 years, for 30 years and then talk about coming and selling them the lot at market price. That is not justice; that is exploitation because it is your investment that has increased the value of what used to be called a swamp,” he argued.

Councillor for the Welcome Hall Division and businessman Martin Kellier makes a point during a discussion about the tenure of Bogue Industrial Estate at a meeting in Montego Bay on Wednesday night.

People’s National Party caretaker for St James West Central Dr Andre Haughton makes a point as Senator Janice Allen looks on during a forum on the country’s economic growth, Wednesday night.