Dear Editor
I FIRST got wind of this “Land giving away’’ shout last Saturday. My first and immediate response was that it was not true, as it would not have emanated from neither the Ministry of Housing per se, nor its executing agency, the Central Housing and Planning Authority(CH&PA). I reasoned that apart from the fact that even if true and a legitimate activity, that it would not have been done at this specific time; as well as the fact, that government has taken a decision not to encourage any such activity that will lead to squatting.

As it has been confirmed, such an action apart from being illegal and ill advised, was not government- sanctioned.

I smell a rat, a horrible scent that informs of forces bent on embarrassing the government, particularly at a time of an election campaign when the government has been proudly showcasing its numerous socio-economic achievements; and those others, particularly the PPP/C opposition, concocting all sorts of dishonest acts, with a view of both appealing to and capturing the sympathy/votes of particularly Afro Guyanese who not only bore the full brunt of the PPP/C’s racism, marginalisation and discrimination; but who were completely out of that former regime’s consideration as part of the Guyanese family.

The fact that this section of our country, would have constituted the majority of persons rushing to the Cummings Lodge area, last weekend, originating from the Sophia locale, and as far as West Coast, Demerara, and even from the East Coast too, underlines that housing is still, by far, the most pressing and urgent social issue, that has been confronting the coalition government.

This was further evidenced, during the not so long ago “Taking the government to the people’’ initiative, when in virtually every region visited, hundreds of persons enquired about applications made to the CH&PA, since post- 1992. But this is compliments of the shambolic and failed PPP/C housing programme from 1992-2015. And as an aside, one wonders about the billions which that party’s government, had boldly stated in one of its propaganda booklets on housing as being spent on building infrastructure, in the housing settlements which it had brought into existence. Thanks to the coalition’s concept programme of total communities – the drains, roads, culverts, and street lighting, started becoming a reality from May 2015. The evidence is there for all to see, even within PPP/C support communities.

There is no doubt that the persons who converged on the Cummings Lodge locale last weekend were misled and duped into the belief that their actions were legitimate. Call it a very cruel hoax, that exploited their need of the key social acquisition of a shelter over their heads, but with political overtones, since there were statements from a few of the would-be squatters, of “no land, no vote.”

What was even MORE cruel, is the fact that the lands in question had already been apportioned, since during the PPP/C regime’s tenure, a fact which was explained by the minister with responsibility for Housing, Annette Ferguson, which must have been known by the intellectual authors of such a cruel deception. Their orchestration of this grand political trick, was for purely political ends, of a subversive type – to cause disaffection between the government and its supporters.

Let me say this, in closing, that the forces of evil have been cornered; their dangerous lies and deceptive machinations are daily being exposed for what they are – SIMPLY LIES AND LIARS. But they will stop at nothing in their last-gasp efforts to derail the coalition’s campaign and its socio-economic programmes, which are about building on its numerous achievements in just four years in office. So, supporters/members of the coalition parties must exercise greater vigilance and awareness as to the criminal deceptions which are daily planned for those who may be unsuspecting

Regards
Carla Mendonca