The Corion Family on the sister isle of Carriacou has rejected claims being made by trapped boat owners in the controversial Tyrrel Bay Marina that they erected a Fence to lock in their boats without any prior notice.
A family spokesman told THE NEW TODAY the owners of the boats that got stranded there and appealed for help were forewarned to remove themselves and their property from the area.
He said that a female member of the family had given the boat owners “advanced notice” that the place was going to be fenced and that they should leave the area.
“It is not like she did it overnight,” he quipped.
According to the family member, one of the boaters was basically shocked to see a Black person was the one that owned the 7 acres of land.
He pointed out that the family member was scoffed at in “a condescending tone” and was warned that they were the ones who were trespassing because they believed that CDC was the owner of the property.
“So it is not like they were blind-sided – they just didn’t believe that Black folks could own that,” he remarked.
The family member indicated that things have now changed significantly with the erection of the Fence and that the boat owners who were previously laughing at them “are now turning around and asking them for help.”
“We told them that we were the owners and to get off the land. We are not supposed to wait for you to get your act together. We told you that we’re the owners (and) you had the right to move off,” he said.
The family member stated that the Corion Family took the decision to erect the Fence and not touch any of the boats in the Marina and to push them out of the area.
He said: “If we touch any of their boats that’s a way out for the Marina to basically say we are interfering with their clients and they could sue us – we can’t touch that.”
“These guys have been making money on our lands – they haven’t paid us – nobody has paid us – so either the government owes us or they (Marina) owes us but somebody has been operating and making profits and revenue on our lands and not paying us one single dime,” he added.
The family member stressed that even before the Marina developers started any of the major construction work on the site they were warned that they were intruding on private property.
He said the Corion family was literally brushed aside and the developers of the Marina started to behave towards them “just like cowboys.”
He added that it is clear the persons behind the Marina were operating on the premises that “they had the (political) powers with them to do whatever they wanted to do.”
The two major government figures involved in the Marina project were former Prime Minister Keith Mitchell and the late Foreign Affairs Minister Elvin Nimrod who held the post of Minister for Carriacou & Petite Martinique Affairs.
In 2018, the then ruling New National Party (NNP) administration signed a lease for the Marina lands with the developers.
However, the Privy Council heard the matter in the same year and declared the Corion family to be the owners of the 7 acres of land.
The family spokesman told THE NEW TODAY that the Congress administration of Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has acknowledged the Privy Council ruling and dropped out of the Court battle with the Developers on the disputed lands.
However, he called on the government to state whether the Developers had paid any monies to the Treasury on the Lease that was granted to them eight years ago.
“If the government collected any money in the beginning or afterwards then the government owes us as it is our lands – you have been collecting fees and tolls on our lands while we are paying taxes.
“At no point had we stopped paying taxes. So we are paying taxes and … yet we are forced to pay taxes on our own land while somebody else makes money and not paying …that is the most craziest stuff you could imagine.
“If they paid government and government conceded that it is private land then the government (has) been collecting tolls and money on behalf of a private citizen and not paying us – so who is paying who?
“If they paid the government then the government owes us money and if they haven’t paid government, they haven’t paid anybody.”