Speaking with Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde, we asked about the very challenging and powerful ministry that he is now tasked to manage.
You'll remember that the first thing the news government did on Thursday was effect an enforced shutdown of the lands department. Prime Minister Briceno said that it was because of reports that certain staff was removing files from the office after the change of government.
And, while that is perhaps indicative of how red hot this ministry was, over the years, the department has also been a source of national pain for regular folks who get lost in the bureaucratic maze just trying to secure a piece of land.
And, then there's the endemic corruption. That department has also made the news a number of times over the years during the Barrow Administration for allegations of fraud, duplicated land titles for the same parcel of land, and alleged ministerial indiscretion. Gaspar Vega, a former Minister of Natural Resources, had to step down because a land scandal involving his son became public. And of course, indiscretions and political and bureaucratic misdeeds in offices high and low stretch back decades in this department.
So, we asked Cordel Hyde he will do differently from his predecessors:
Hon. Cordel Hyde - DPM/Minister of Natural Resources
"Every time someone gets 10,000 acres or 5,000 acres or 2,000 acres, the pie shrinks, it gets smaller and so our task from day 1 will be to ensure that we focus on the people who don't have land, all the hard working people of this country - all the poor people of this country - all the landless people of this country, to ensure that they get a piece of this jewel. because I am very worried that if we don't do that now, we are condemning our people to generations of poverty to come and so we have to arrest that right now and that will be our focus. I prefer to look forward rather than look backward. I prefer to focus on the task at hand rather than dwelling on what's gone."
Reporter
"Sir, but unfortunately the situation is that the ministry you are about to take over, the former prime minister famously said that it's a hotbed of corruption. How will you guys in this new administration work to not only right the wrongs that keep going on with hard working people, but seek redress against those who have abused public trust for the benefit of their families and friends?"
Hon. Cordel Hyde - DPM/Minister of Natural Resources
"We have to take a close look at that. We have to look closer at what has transpired over the recent past. The truth of the matter is we are going to have to do something going forward in terms of this frenetic level of activity that takes place at the lands department in the weeks and months before an elections, like that just cannot be right. You've had 5 years. In the case of this government you had 13 years to do what you are supposed to do, so for you to act kinda like crazy and kinda have the office open until late at night and 7 days a week - something is wrong with that. We will have to take a serious look at what has transpired there, no doubt. I am not saying that we won't do that, I'm just saying that the task at hand is great and my focus and my energy will be on making sure that the people who have been left behind, who have been left out get serviced. We hope that the decent people, they are still decent people and they would do the right thing and where there are indecent people we hope that the decent will reveal these people to us and reveal those actions to us so that we can take the necessary steps. But, we've only just been sworn in and so we have a gigantic task at hand and we will proceed to deal with those."
