-Housing Minister reassures citizens that development will continue

WITH approximately 800 house lots being distributed in the East Coast Demerara communities of Good Hope and Lusignan, it is evident that the Housing Ministry is constantly raising the bar for home-ownership with its aggressive and highly-anticipated “Dream Realised” housing drive.

On Monday, the housing drive was held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) under the Ministry of Housing and Water’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).

During her address, Minister within the Ministry of Housing, Susan Rodrigues, lauded the housing drive and noted that her government will always strive to make home ownership possible for all Guyanese.

“During the course of the day, we will be allocating approximately 800 house lots and this will go predominately to low and moderate income earners,” she said before underscoring that the new housing schemes will be within close proximity of the Enmore Industrial Site, government services, among other necessities.

She further related: “Of course it takes quite some time and it takes a lot of investment from the government to be able to move from cane field to a thriving housing scheme…but you have seen the commitment from the government to ensuring that these lands are developed.”

With tremendous investments being pumped into the housing sector, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration has already achieved its manifesto promise of providing affordable housing with 10,000 house lots being distributed annually, but according to Minister Rodrigues, the efforts will not stop there.

Stressing that her government is always striving to make home ownership a reality for all Guyanese from different walks of life, Minister Rodrigues remarked: “Of course, it is easy for us to tick a box and say that we have delivered our manifesto commitment of 50,000 house lots.”

In addition to this, she noted that the PPP administration aims to provide not only a home but also an environment that the owners and their families can feel safe in. The Minister said that her government is one that empowers the people and not one that keeps them down.

Touching on the rent subsidy narrative that the Opposition has been peddling, the senior government official said that this will keep citizens in poverty as it is not well thought out.

“You would have heard the Opposition talk about rent subsidy or subsidization of rent for low-income; that is not something that we [PPP government] believe can benefit people in the long run,” she explained

Minister Rodrigues further said: “And so the overall objective of our [PPP government] programme is to empower and to give you financial freedom.”

She emphasised that she and her colleagues understand that it is a struggle for people to be able to purchase a property and thus, she commended the hundreds of persons in the audience for making that outstanding effort.

Apart from the aggressive housing drive, she also mentioned that the massive infrastructural works along with job creation are byproducts of it and therefore, East Coast residents will surely feel the positives from the large scale investments that help to stimulate the economy.

She also encouraged the residents to go to the upcoming Building Expo, which will run from August 24-27, so they can see what more the government has in store for them.

Meanwhile, Minister of Housing, Collin Croal, expressed nothing but happiness for the new land owners as he noted that he understands that some of them have been waiting years for their land.

According to him: “The recent allocations for Region Four have all been East Coast Demerara allocations.”

He added that the work never ends because the ministry is always moving towards its overall target.

“Right now we have contracts for the development of new areas. If you take out the four lane roads; we have contracts that are signed to at least $36 billion dollars for development of new infrastructure…,” he said.