RESIDENTS of several villages in East Berbice, Corentyne, Region Six, can expect relief within the coming months to issues that have been causing hardship to their daily lives when it comes to basic services under the Housing and Water Ministry.
During an outreach to the region on Saturday last, Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal committed to a number of long, short and medium-term interventions for issued raised by residents.

The meetings were held at West and East Canje and continued in the villages of Kilcoy and Belvedere.
Later that day, the minister engaged residents of Lesbeholden, Ankerville, Mibicuri, Yakusar, and Numbers 64 and 76 villages.
Topping the list of complains levelled to the minister were the need for residential house lots, the level of service provided by Guyana Water Inc., prolonged wait for titles and transports, deplorable roads, drainage infrastructure and the lack of street lighting.

Speaking to the issue which falls under his ministry, Minister Croal committed to having these issues fixed within the shortest possible time.
In the coming weeks, the local neighbourhood democratic councils (NDCs) will be compiling information on leakages to GWI mains, to have repair works commence. In instances where some of these communities are experiencing low level of services, assessments will be done to find the cause and possible solutions. In the long-term, the villages Fyrish, Chesney, Belvedere, Ankerville and Lesbeholden Black Bush Polder can expect new water-well and distribution network.

The minister also assured residents that the new management of the water company will be looking at ways to improve the customer relations response time in an effort to bring better service.

Speaking directly to housing, the minister cited several deficiencies in the current system, all of which are being examined. Minister Croal also spoke of the ministry’s aggressive housing drive which will see 10,000 serviced lots being distributed annually and the plan to distribute more than 2,000 titles in the coming months.

Again, the minister reiterated the ministry’s zero tolerance policy for squatting, having been met with dozens of complaints about the issue in existing housing schemes and government reserves in the communities visited.
“The only way to be assured of getting a house lot from the ministry is to apply, we will not be forced into regularising lands or giving a house lot because of squatting,” the minister lamented.

He further assured that based on the scope of the new housing drive, every citizen, who has active application in the system will be served according to the year they applied.
Meanwhile, for the issues raised that are outside of the Housing and Water sector, the minster referred to the budget measures which speaks directly to these issues.

The minister outlined that there is provision in the budget for the rehabilitation of road network across the country as well as allocation for solar street lights. In the agriculture sector, a number of measures are in place to address issues affecting farmers.
The minister’s visit came as a follow up to Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha’s visit to the region where a number of housing and water issues were raised.