…in light of expanding West Bank population
GOVERNMENT will commence work on a new road to bring relief to new settlers of Region Three – Parfaite Harmonie and other communities – and link them closer to the Demerara Harbour Bridge as the ‘Westside’ communities are becoming increasingly populated due to the housing boom there. This is according to Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali, who was speaking at the opening of a community multi-purpose centre in the Bell West playfield in Region Three on Friday. He said the works on this road will commence before the end of the year.
The minister said the area from Schoonord near the Demerara Harbour Bridge “coming all the way to Canal No. 2, over the last 15 years, has seen a dramatic transformation, an incredible transformation which requires us now to restructure the way we plan and approach development.”
“And that is why it has become critically important to develop an alternative access for the Parfaite Harmonie Housing Scheme to be closer linked to the Demerara Harbour Bridge, and to take the traffic off of the Canal No. 1 and the La Grange roads. So that is another major investment that we have planned,” said the minister.
He spoke of the further expansion of the Bell West Scheme under the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and there are almost 700 new lots planned between Schoonord and Canal No.2.
The minister said Region 3 benefitted tremendously in the Housing and Water sector. “If you look at the period 2004 to 2010, a period of only six years, we invested more than $6B in the housing sector – in Tuschen, Zeelugt, Parfaite Harmonie, Schoonord, Bell West, Belle Vue, and Westminster,” he said.
“Last year we invested more than $608M and in 2011, the Government of Guyana, through the Community Road Improvement Programme (CRIP), will be investing more than $1.8B in Region 3,” he said.
The minister said the population in Region Three has been increasing as a result of the housing programme; and because of this, there is need for a greater level of investment to cater for the services that this population would require.
He said too that it is important that as new communities develop, there continues to be investment in the older housing areas. He said the ministry would be targeting those communities under the CRIP to ensure that everyone has an equal share in the development pie.
“When we plan development, we do not plan based on ethnicity, religion or class. We plan based on the principle that we want to bring benefits and opportunities to the people of the society,” the minister said.

“When we commenced the work on these community centres, it was at a particular time in the market…you had rising prices in construction material, so it called for a lot of management to make sure that we completed the building within the contractual sum. Although we were hoping that we could have some savings so that we could do the fence, that was not the case. But I want to assure you here today that the Ministry of Housing is undertaking the responsibility of completing the fence very shortly,” said the minister.
The Centre at Bell West is one of four planned for opening across the country. Two Fridays ago, the ministry opened a similar centre in Glasgow, Berbice, and others are planned for Westminster in Region Three and Onderneeming in Region Two. The total cost of the four centres is $114.2M.
Ali said there are many government programmes that are meant to complement the centres and he challenged the management committee of the centre to get on board in the computerisation programme. “There are a number of communities that are accessing maybe 10 – 15 with the understanding that the community will train other persons in the use of computers. This is one area that the government can help you in,” he said.
He said that the returns that the building can produce are life-changing skills and opportunities. “Use the building for seminars, to deal with issues of drugs, issues of abuse. The government has programmes designed to deal with these issues now,” Ali said.
Ali said that the ministry’s and government’s partner in development, the European Union, will be more convinced, like the IDB, to move in the direction of having in-house design and supervision and to have more of this task done from the institutional capacity in the ministry itself rather than by consultants. “Because this is a success story of what the in-house staff could do and our own local knowledge and institutional strength,” he said.
The European Union is to be credited for collaborating with government to launch the Low Income Housing Programme in 2004. The programme aimed to improve access to affordable housing for low-income groups in Guyana, through the construction and upgrading of new and existing infrastructure, encouraging community participation in project implementation, and supporting community initiatives.
The programme was implemented in seven housing areas, namely Sophia D, Cummings Lodge C, Cummings Lodge Y, Glasgow, Westminster, Onderneeming and Bell West. The programme provided infrastructure to 4,228 lots and capacity building, social issues and skills training to 250 persons of the respective communities.