AG seeks permission to demolish shanty towns

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Attorney General filed a summons on Friday seeking permission from the courts to demolish an expanded shanty town in Abaco as well as at two locations in New Providence.

Prime Minister Phillip ‘Brave’ Davis confirmed the filing in a tweet on Friday, a week after announcing the government’s plans to seek a modification of an existing shanty town injunction.

He also revealed that further steps to address the country’s immigration problem will be outlined in the days ahead.

“This morning, the Office of the Attorney General filed a summons seeking permission to demolish the expansion of a shanty town in Abaco and at two locations in New Providence,” the prime minister tweeted on Friday.

“I am coordinating a cross-government response with the senior leadership of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Ministry of Immigration, the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Ministry of Works, and the Attorney’s General Office.

“In the coming days, I will outline further steps on immigration, focusing on enforcement, protection of our borders and international cooperation.”

The filing came the same day the Prime Minister received deaths threats from an anonymous caller who phoned into his office - with investigations into the matter said to be continuing.

It also follows months of reignited calls for more to be done to address the shanty town problem and increasing protests over what some term to be an “immigration crisis” in the country.

Local officials have long lamented the increasing number of illegal communities springing up on several islands, including Abaco, Eleuthera and North Andros.

Central and South Abaco MP John Pinder told reporters last month that the issue of shanty towns on the island is about to reach a “boiling point”.

North Eleuthera MP Sylvanus Petty also recently voiced concern that the problem is getting worse on the island.

Meanwhile, the Davis administration has repeatedly maintained that illegal shanty towns will not be allowed to go unchecked indefinitely, while vowing that any action taken will be done in accordance with the law.

Currently, shanty towns in Abaco and New Providence are covered under a 2018 Supreme Court injunction that bars demolition of the structures pending an outcome of a judicial review over the matter.

After Hurricane Dorian hit Abaco in 2019, the Minnis administration sought to have the 2018 injunction varied to exclude Abaco shanty towns and their residents and started demolishing newly built structures on the island post Dorian.

However, the government was ordered to cease and desist from further demolitions when Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson ordered an extension of her injunction to include all unregulated communities in Abaco.

They must now get approval from the court before demolishing any further structures, as the injunction remains in place.

On January 26, Prime Minister Davis told reporters it was the government’s intention to seek a modification of the injunction so officials can stop the growing numbers of illegal developments in the country.

He also responded to criticism that the government has not been doing enough the stem illegal migration after The Bahamas repatriated a “record” number of irregular migrants last year.

Currently, The Bahamas is experiencing a spike of illegal migration from Haiti and also from Cuba.

“Maybe they could tell us what else we can do, but we know that we are doing all that we can,” Mr Davis said last month.

“They’re going to continue to come. As long as the conditions in Haiti persist, we’re going to have people trying to get out of Haiti and if you speak to them most of them are not coming trying to get to The Bahamas.

“They are trying to get to the United States of America. And as they come into our waters, because of our international treaties we are bound to process them and return them as quickly as we can. That’s what we’ve been doing.”