– Approximately 1,300 house lots allocated countrywide for 2019
– Vetting process for allocation to be reviewed

THE working class will be placed on the “front burner” for the allocation of house lots come 2020, said Minister within the Ministry of Communities with responsibility for Housing, Annette Ferguson.

“I have before me applications and acknowledgement letters going as way back as 1991 coming down to current…when I got here at the ministry in April, I recognised applicants were not being treated fairly because you have people who just applied and [were] given an allocation,” said Minister Ferguson during her remarks at the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA)’s end of year press conference, on Monday.
In 2019, the authority received 6,412 new applications, which took the total to about 60,000 active applications.

The minister committed to ensuring that those applications were addressed and noted that the process had already started, with focus being placed on the working class.
“I want to say that 2020 will be a better year for those who are seeking a house lot or solution from the CH&PA… I want to make it clear that the mandate of this authority is to provide housing accommodation for the working class and the authority would have deviated from its initial responsibility in the past,” said Minister Ferguson.
The deviation she spoke about was related to the past when large plots of land were distributed to persons, who would then commercialise them and resell to others. The minister said she had an issue with those allocations because when that happened, the “ordinary people” were not being treated fairly.

Her belief is that, in some cases, land was issued to persons who did not need it. In that regard, Minister Ferguson said the authority, when allocating land, will be distributing to persons who were in dire need of land. In doing so, the authority will be able to realise its true mandate.

“We have already started working towards our goal…we started looking at old applications…the focus was on applications from the 90s up to 2010,” said the minister.

According to the CH&PA, some 1,298 house lots were distributed throughout the country this year, a total which surpassed the authority’s target of 1,000 house lots. The authority was also able to distribute 2,063 Certificates of Title to persons who were able to pay-off their outstanding balance. The distribution of titles surpassed the initial target of 1,500.
In addition, the authority continued to surpass targets by conducting over 6,000 interviews which was more than double the target for 2019.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the CH&PA, Lelon Saul, said the authority was providing housing for the entire nation, particularly for the “small man.”

“Those who have the means need to go on the open market and purchase house lots and houses…they should do that and don’t come here because we are for the small man,” said Saul, who was adamant that the working class should benefit first.

The CEO echoed the sentiments of Minister Ferguson, noting that the authority was revising its systems to ensure that the working class benefitted from house lots and housing solutions.

“We cannot ignore the small man…you walk around Georgetown in the nights, you have citizens sleeping in the streets and people should not be living like that…we have to address this problem, we must address this problem,” Saul asserted.

As part of this effort, he promised that the authority will continue to subsidize the cost of housing so it would be affordable for every Guyanese. And, it has been evident that Guyanese were interested in house lots and housing solutions, given the number of applications which the authority has received over the years.
In response to the increasing demand, the authority has conducted designs and surveys for 16 new housing areas around the country, which will be ready for allocation soon. Part of the new housing areas include some 1,400 acres of land which the CH&PA purchased from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for housing development.

SCREENING PROCESS
In order to ensure that the “small man” benefits from those new lands and with regard to the increasing demand, Operations Director of CH&PS, Denise King-Tudor, said the authority will be reviewing the screening process which is conducted to ensure that persons are eligible for land.

“We are in the process of reviewing our criteria and selection of persons because people come to us and provide documentation and say one thing like for instance what they earn, but sometimes I believe those persons do not give us all the information pertaining to their financial status,” said King-Tudor.

The authority will, therefore, pay more attention to the screening process in order to ensure that those persons, who are in dire need, benefit from land allocations or housing solutions.