THE Public Relations Officer of the Tafari Charlemagne Community Housing Association, Doctor Marcus Day, has declared that if the commercial sector wants something to happen in Saint Lucia, it will happen regardless of the effect on the population.
Day made the comments while disclosing that the National Housing Corporation (NHC) has obtained a ruling against some persons who are occupying CDC units in La Clery.
The area will become the site of a new development.
The occupants are to vacate the units by the end of July, Day told the local social media news organ, St Lucia Times.
According to Day, the ruling applies to two families, while the occupants of other units have until next year to vacate.
“It was immaterial that the people who they were going after were the descendants of the original tenants from seventy years ago,” the PRO of the Tafari Charlemagne Community Housing Association noted.
“The day they start sending the SSU to pull people out of houses in Saint Lucia, [then] we know we have some problems because that is not the way we do things here, going back to early colonial times,” he declared.
He explained that he is watching the situation very closely to see how far the government will go in negating the civil code.
Dr Day asserted that neither the ruling United Workers Party(UWP) nor the Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) tried to resolve the issue of the CDC units.
“It basically goes with my basic premise that if the commercial interests want something to happen in Saint Lucia, damn the population. The commercial interests will win out,” he lamented.
“We see that happening down in the South. We are not looking at quality of life indicators for our people, we are looking at developmental and GDP indicators,” Day stated.
He observed that despite reports of increased numbers in tourism and the GDP, there are still many people who are suffering below the poverty line.