GIVING an update on the action taken last year by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) to address squatting in certain areas in Guyana, Minister within the Ministry of Communities Valerie Adams-Yearwood, said works have commenced.

In a meeting at the ministry on Wednesday, the minister said that last Thursday, a team went to Belle West and met with a group of about 30-35 squatters, who had visited the minister to voice their concerns on when the works would begin.

“Last week when we visited, we recognised that there are parts of the area that need building up. The land was swampy, but the land is now hard and more appropriate for housing. However, I told them that at this time, CH&PA does not have money to put in the necessary infrastructure… But because they have commenced squatting, and I know that if I say to them we can’t allow you to, they are going to go overnight and put up their structures and it is going to make things more difficult for us,” she said.

To prevent further setbacks, such as having persons squat and fall outside of boundaries of the house lots, the minister said that the squatters have agreed to work with CH&PA timeline.
She said that they have already surveyed the area and piles are already in place.
“Sometime during next week, I am hoping that we are able to conclude on what checks we need to do and we will be in a position to commence allocation to these persons in the first instance,” she posited.

She added: “those persons who were already in the system, who have applied, we collected their acknowledgement letters. The ones who never applied, we are conducting interviews and the surveyor and engineer are on the ground. We have since been doing follow up checks to ensure that the area is ready to accommodate construction.”

Minister Adams-Yearwood also highlighted that even though there is a list with about 200 plus names, where persons would have applied, those persons who are desirous of having an allocation in Region Three, and more particularly in Belle West, those are the people CH&PA is going to allocate to first.

“A large percentage of the applications went to the youth population and we are looking within the next week or two to make an announcement where we are looking at another area where we are going to facilitate young professionals,” Yearwood unveiled.