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By Kimone Witter
In limbo over whether they will be relocated, residents of Innswood Estate in Old Harbour, St. Catherine are calling for the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) Holdings to address their status.
Some 15 houses on the former sugar lands were bulldozed in February 2021 to accommodate the Silver Sun Estates Housing Development.
Since then, the remaining residents have been waiting to hear when they will be moved.
They used a community meeting convened by SCJ on Thursday to voice their concerns.
But Kerlene Graham, Human Resource and Community Relations Director at SCJ, said the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the establishment of pre-paid electricity metering systems.
She noted that the government has been paying the electricity bills for residents in the community for years, adding that the residents have now been advised that an "electricity separation" will have to be done.
"We told them quite clearly that we have been in dialogue with JPS Co and we know the demographics, because this is a community we know very well. We're seeking to get them their individual prepaid metres at the very least cost," she said.
Ms Graham said the plan is to complete the rewiring of houses by March 31.
But one resident said some of the houses are in a deplorable state. She argued that it would be a waste of resources to fix the houses without knowing whether relocation is still on the table.
"The house dem is no good down here. And we want to know where we stand and where they're going to locate wi if anything, because we don't want wi money go down the drain when we...fix the house," she insisted.
Ms Graham committed to taking the concerns of the residents to the management of the SCJ.
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