The political insider – few of us in the mainstream understand the life of such a person – how they glide through the corridors of power, bull their way past the bureaucracy, grease the gatekeepers and compromise the custodians of the national patrimony. In the dying throes of the last government we’re told those insiders had all but taken charge of a Lands Department that was being run like fish market on Holy Thursday.
But that crowd is gone, and the opposition says a new group of insiders are getting ready to slide their tentacles into the command and control area of the Lands Department. And one man that’s always in the middle of the conversation is Romel Berges. He’s the Chairman of the Port Authority and a consummate UDP insider, close confidante of the Minister of Natural Resources and a businessman. So a story that blew through the opposition media this morning seemed to have legs when it was alleged that Berges had gotten permission to survey a pieces of land in Vista del Mar that was in the sea. It’s happened before, in the fish-market era, but it should not happen. Berges who already owns lot 1468 in Vista was given permission to survey the one right in front which abuts the sea – except – the story goes, most of it is in the sea. A good story, except from what we could tell, it’s not true. We went to check it out today and Berges defended his position. In fact, he even went one step further saying that he’s the victim of a conspiracy.
Jules Vasquez,
What then do you make of this fairly widely circulated information that Romel Berges, close friend of the Minister of Natural Resources has been given permission to survey property within the sea?
Romel Berges,
“Now you’re going still within the sea. We’re not in the sea. I have applied for permission to survey. It is not within the sea and you have seen it with your own eyes and I have marked it out for you and also I applied for permission and you have to my right here where property has gone out to the mark I want to go out and to my left the same thing and we are all from the sea wall. I am not going into the sea, people are fabricating things, people are being malicious and they want to be as malicious as possible. The information what you have shown me has only come out of the mapping department in the Lands where all of a sudden information is coming out flying, where all of a sudden it seems that the opposition or people close or really come friends with the leader of the opposition are trying to pay for information to these people who are working in the mapping department to see whatever information they can get to sabotage the government of the day.”
