– Jagdeo scoffs at Norton’s criticisms of govt’s housing policy

OPPOSITION leader Aubrey Norton has once again come in for major flak for his criticism of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government’s housing policy, which has seen thousands of Guyanese benefitting over the past two-and-half years from home and land ownership.

In fact, more house lots have been allocated under this administration, in just under three years in comparison to the APNU+AFC’s five years in office. This was reiterated by General Secretary of the PPP Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo during his weekly press conference at Freedom House, Georgetown on Thursday last.

Dr. Jagdeo said the PPP has made housing one of the most vibrant sectors in the economy. “Guyanese now have homeownership; land ownership, because of the policies of the PPP. And as recent as the 2015 to the 2020 period, they [APNU+AFC] did very little to enhance that,” the general secretary pointed out.

Noting Norton’s audacity, with a track record such as his, Dr. Jagdeo said: “He comes to criticise the PPP about its housing policy! How visionless can you be, if you don’t want people to own things; you just want them to rent all their lives!

“Clearly, he has nothing to do! His advisers should tell him to stay away from this issue, because it can’t win his party any sympathy in the Guyanese populace at large.”
Norton, at a recent press conference, said the APNU+AFC would assist Guyanese with rent, a notion dismissed by the general secretary as, ‘divorced from reality’.
He reminded that Norton comes from a party which has a terrible track record, as it relates to housing.

“This a leader who comes from a party with a track record that, since Forbes Burnham died, they never had a housing programme, which led to a massive backlog of people living in very terrible conditions, and not having the dignity of ownership, even closing down the Ministry of Housing,” the general secretary stated.

The PPP, in its Manifesto, promised to provide 50,000 house lots during its first five years in office. The lots allocated to date total some 22,500. (DPI)