…Minister Ali refutes Kaieteur News letter
Neither The Government of Guyana nor the Ministry of Housing and Water are in any way profiting from the sale of land to Guyanese. In fact, the stark reality is the provision of housing is heavily subsidised.
Minister of Housing and Water, Irfaan Ali made this assertion on Friday, during the Housing Ministry’s ninth ‘One Stop Shop’ activity for this year, in Lusignan, on the East Coast of Demerara.
He was at the time responding to a letter in the Kaieteur News, written by M. Maxwell, headlined – ‘$889M from sale of house lots in 2010 seriously exposes PPP’s boast on housing accomplishments’ , dated  September 22, 2011.
The minister explained that the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) reported a surplus of $226.6M and $692.3M for 2009 and 2010 respectively.
According to Ali, the writer inaccurately stated that CH&PA made a profit of $954M in 2009 and $1,248M in 2010, when a record number of allocations, totaling 6,400 were made by the Authority.
These allocations were made up of 75 percent low income house lots that cost $100,000, and 25 percent moderate to middle income house lots that range from $300,000 to $700,000, he added.
As to the importance of these figures, the minister said, “CH&PA’s 2010 expenditure was $1.2B, which included $680M received from the government for housing infrastructure projects. Income for 2010 was $1.940B; this includes $889.2M from the sale of house lots, which is obviously the bone of contention of the writer.”
He  emphasized that the facts stated above only serve to  refute the claim that  the CH&PA or the government is in any way profiting from selling the people of this country their own land.
In addition, the Housing Minister  highlighted that, in 2010, under the Inter –American Development Bank’s (IDB) Second Low Income Settlement Programme (LIS2) valued US$27.9M, the CH&PA expended  G$1,573B on infrastructure works in low income housing schemes in Regions 3 (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara), 4 (Demerara/Mahaica), 5 (Mahaica/Berbice),6 (East Berbice/Corentyne), 9 (Upper Takatu/Upper Essequibo) and 10 (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice).
In an effort to further illustrate his point , Ali gave an example of two such housing developments which were allocated to beneficiaries and completed in 2010,  and which were heavily subsidised by the government.
One such area is Tuschen Phase 2, on the East Bank Essequibo, a low income scheme with 666 lots, with the per lot cost of putting in infrastructure being $527,027.
Alluding to level of subvention here, he stated, “When this is compared to the selling price of $100,000 per lot, then it is very easy to see that the level of subsidisation is 427 percent.”
For the middle income housing scheme located at Plantation Schoonord, the average cost per lot is $500,000; this is also subsidised at a level of 10.3 percent. The cost of putting in electricity in these schemes has not been included, which means that the level of subsidisation would be even higher.
“From the facts presented above, it is clear to see that the ministry is not profiting from the sale of house lots; in fact we are presently conducting a One Stop Shop exercise at the Lusignan Community Center, where hundreds more will benefit from the ministry’s programme. I invite Mr. Maxwell to come to one of these  exercises to witness, firsthand, the transparent  way in which  the allocation of house lots are done,” Minister Ali  said.
More than 200 house lots in Mon Repos and Good Hope were allocated to beneficiaries  on Friday and, according to the Housing and Water Minister, the development of this scheme was also made possible through  heavy financial support from the government.
Eighty nine million dollars is the government subsidy for the more than 200 house lots at Mon repos and Good Hope, Ali explained.
“In fact, Government is paying, on your behalf this amount. That means for every single household that will get a house lot, they would receive a subsidy of $359,000. That is the mathematics. If you have four persons living in that house, it means that for every single person who lives there, the government is investing  $89,717, and that is just in one of the schemes,” he explained to the allotees.