A Gang Was Selling Fake Land Titles on Government Property. Holness Sent Bulldozers

• 30 illegal structures identified in Clifton, St Catherine
• A criminal gang was selling captured land as its own
• The land was earmarked for agriculture under Bernard Lodge
• Holness called it a watershed moment for Jamaica

Government began demolishing 30 illegally erected structures on the outskirts of Clifton, St Catherine, after Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the House of Representatives that a criminal gang had captured land within the Greater Bernard Lodge Development Plan, land designated for agriculture, and was selling it under false pretences of ownership. This will be a watershed moment in Jamaica, Holness said. It is not the first time the government has moved to rectify illegal settlements, but it is the first time an illegal settlement sponsored by a criminal gang will be treated with.

The National Security Council’s review of the Bernard Lodge plan found what Holness described as an insidious and growing threat: alleged gang members had created their own informal subdivision on land owned by SCJ Holdings Limited, either building on it directly or selling parcels to others under a false claim of ownership. SCJ Holdings had already given warnings and served cease-and-desist notices, Holness said, but the capturing and illegal construction continued regardless until roughly 30 structures existed.

Holness drew a deliberate distinction in how the demolition would proceed: incomplete structures would come down first, while completed, occupied structures would go through a separate process rather than immediate demolition. We’re not an evil government, he said. We are not an unthinking and uncaring government. We care, so after we have demolished the incomplete structures, then we will engage a process to deal with the structures that are complete and occupied. He also warned Jamaicans generally to be wary of anyone falsely reselling government or private land.

The Bernard Lodge case differs in a specific, important way from the informal settlements this publication has covered in Trelawny and elsewhere: the occupants there are typically long-term residents or families claiming inherited land rights, disputes over legitimate but undocumented tenure. Clifton’s case was, by the government’s own account, an organised criminal enterprise fabricating land ownership to sell to buyers who may not have known the titles were fraudulent, a different problem requiring a different response, even if the end result, bulldozers and displaced structures, looked similar from the outside.

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