— as Home Construction Assistance Facility rolls out in Region Six  

Region Six residents made use of services offered through the Central Housing and Planning Authority that will enable them to get closer to homeownership when the Home Construction Assistance Facility was launched at the Regional Democratic Council Tarmac and at the Classic Hotel on Tuesday.

Housing and Water Minister, Collin Croal, said the programme is geared at helping those in need.

“From the onset, this initiative was crafted by his Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali to help you to reduce some of the financial challenges that you may face. Financial challenges in the sense of unable to access loans for one reason or the other. Financial challenges because on a global level we have seen increased costs etc. but here in Berbice I also know you have had challenges of constructing homes and so this programme now is intended to help you to access those finances for you to build, whether it’s a house lot that was allocated by government or whether you have your own private land or a land you inherited,” he said.

Minister Croal noted that the government’s partnership with the banks is to make the process less tedious and allow for on the spot pre-qualification, providing the requisite documents are provided.

More importantly, he stressed that unlike previous instances where persons were experiencing difficulties in securing the initial equity of 10 per cent, that was later reduced to five per cent and translates to large sums of monies upfront, the land is now being used as equity.

“… finding that initial $500,000 or $1,000,000 was a big challenge in the past as equity but the major difference here is that while you have to also satisfy that you have ownership of the land, the land can be used as equity so in essence the land will be used by the bank as their safety net, the Ministry of Housing and Central Planning will suffice as the guarantor and that initial sum that you had to find upfront can be put towards the full loan. So what immediately it means is that once you have your documents to show ownership of the land you can start very shortly.”

In a message to all Guyanese, the Housing Minister clarified that the programme is open to everyone and persons can visit the ministry’s website for details or visit any of the housing offices.

The government, he said is committed to achieving its goal of providing 50,000 houses on or before 2025.

“This facility is open to as many persons as possible and it is continuous even if you didn’t come here today it’s ongoing because we want to encourage homeownership, we want to encourage construction, so this is another opportunity that we are providing as a government to be a facilitator and an enabler for you to have your own house.”

The programme seeks to target three categories of houses that potential homeowners can qualify for: they are $7M, $9M or $12M based on their incomes. Currently, there are some 6,000 pending applications for house lots in Region Six and the ministry is actively pursuing new lands to satisfy.

As part of this housing drive, some $1.1B in projects are being executed in Region Six.

Projects are being executed in Ordinance Fortlands. There 30 of 100 houses completed were handed over on Tuesday. Williamsburg, Hampshire, Number 75 and 79 villages are the other locations where projects are ongoing.

At both locations, following the registration, a number of persons were given on the spot pre-qualification.