Liverpool, June 11th 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Over 20,000 urban land titles have been granted to citizens in the Eastern city of Guayana since 2002, revealed the President of the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG), Rafael Gil Barrios, last Sunday.

The CVG president made the figures public from a community event in Guayana city, where another 255 land titles were handed over to community based “urban land committees” (CTUs) in the area. Over 600 families will benefit from this latest round of land titles.

“We are grateful that they are granting the first land titles to our community, which is 32 years old and has 1,255 inhabitants. Now social justice is being done because they (the government) have concerned themselves with giving a solution to us, the people” said a CTU spokesperson.

Urban land committees sprang into life in 2002 following a presidential decree which paved the way for citizens to gain the legal deeds to their homes in the country’s shantytowns. Springing up in the 1950s and 1960s on a wave of industrialisation and urbanisation, it is estimated that 50% of Venezuela’s urban population lives in the self-constructed shantytowns on the outskirts of the country’s cities. Despite the vast amounts of the population who live in them, the settlements were technically illegal until the 2002 decree.

According to CTU spokespeople in the area, this latest granting of land titles is the culmination of a 9 year long struggle, with families having occupied the land for several years.

“This is in line with a national policy of justice geared towards housing which is being led by President Chavez. In just 10 years, CVG has handed over 20,800 land titles, benefiting over 105,000 people,” stated the CVG president.

Present at the ceremony were various CVG representatives and the Mayor of Caroni, one of Guyana City’s municipalities. Officials highlighted that the corporation and local government were constantly working alongside the community in order to solve the problem of housing in the area.

“No family should be dealing with third parties who offer to resolve the problem of their land deeds, because we are permanently with communities, attending to the CTUs and the inhabitants of the city,” added Barrios.

The CVG is a state corporation that brings together all of Venezuela’s basic industries located in Bolivar state, including aluminium factory CVG Alcasa and iron ore mining company, CVG Ferrominera. The corporation is crucial to implementing the government’s “Socialist Guyana Plan,” a project aimed at integrating communities and workers and changing capitalist modes of production to socialist ones.