The biggest investment ever made in Timor has just been signed between the country's government and the investor, the powerful Pelican Paradise Group, based in Singapore.
The project began to be negotiated in 2008. The 13 years it took to negotiate attest to the complexity of what is at stake.
The controversial project involves moving residents who, although without ownership title, live in the approximately 550 hectares (the equivalent to 550 football fields) where the luxurious tourist resort will be built.
It is in the vast area between Tasi Tolu and Tibar.
There is the serious social and political issue: what are the prospects for the people who over the years have settled in the land that is now going to become a sophisticated touristic resort.
The government promised to relocate the residents, who now found themselves in limbo, between Singapore’s powerful investment group and the government.
The $965 million project includes a golf course, residential lots, an international school, hospital and shopping centre, in an area that must be contractually marked by green spaces, large reforestation spaces and gardens.
The Pelican group decided to divide the land into 19 lots. The intervention and construction will evolve in phases.
In the first immediate phase, in an area of about 4 hectares, the construction of hotel residences and apartments will take place.
This will not affect residents; "but in the near future the government will negotiate with the residents to relocate them to other areas," said Fidelis Leite Magalhães, East Timor's Minister of Economy.
The resort space is leased by the Timorese State to the Singapore investor.
José Edmundo Caetano, deputy justice minister of Timor confirmed that the agreement includes a 50-year lease of the 550 hectares of state land, divided into 19 lots, for an annual value of about US$1.3 million, with the contract to be renewable for another 49 years.
One of the building interventions is the elevation of the land in order to try to avoid the risk of floods to which that portion of land is exposed.
The investment agreement also provides for the immediate construction of a road that will link the resort to the airport and the city of Dilí.
There are expectations about what the social responses might be to those who will be left homeless – albeit on land they had occupied in times when all this still seemed possible.
English version: Luciana Fraguas
