2,000 Acres of Land Taken Away from Frik de Meyere

On Wednesday night, we told you about questionable land transactions in which several persons swept up thousands of acres of property, including prime real estate, across the country.  The Government of Belize, through the Ministry of Natural Resources, has been working diligently with the Belize Police Department to uncover these dubious acquisitions.  According to Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde, real estate agent Frik de Meyere was in possession of almost two thousand acres of land in Santa Cruz, Toledo District.  But he never paid for the sprawling acreage and when villagers began making noise, government stepped in repossessed the land.

 

Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources

“As I understand it, there were five or so parcels of four hundred acres.  They came up to a shade or so under two thousand.  He was, the people in Santa Cruz made an uproar about it.  Santa Cruz is like a pivotal village in the south.  Everybody from the farthest part in the south is prepared to come there, is prepared to go live there.  Like, that is the fastest growing community in this country and he had two thousand acres of nice, nice land, but it’s a lease and he had purchase approval for those lands but he never paid.  He never paid, so it remained national land so he did not fulfill his purchase conditions and so that allowed us to neatly take back those lands for and on behalf of the people of Belize and it didn’t cost us, fortunately.”