– total allottees ‘top’ 11,000

WOMEN have accounted for 43.7 per cent of house lot allocations since the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was elected into office in 2020.

According to a post made on Facebook by the Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues, a total of 11,373 women have been allocated lands.

In August, Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal, revealed that in a span of three years, more than 40 new housing areas were established, including several other initiatives that were developed through partnerships with international organisations.

The minister made these remarks as members of the National Assembly debated the motion to increase Guyana’s debt ceilings.

He said while the PPP/C promised to deliver 50,000 house lots over their first term in office, nothing about the construction of homes was mentioned in the manifesto.

However, Croal told the National Assembly that recognising the need to fast-track homeownership and the necessity, the government also made construction a priority of the PPP/C government.

“To date, in under three years, 2,154 houses [are] under construction, of which close to 1,000 are now complete and have been handed over to new beneficiaries, new homeowners who have that opportunity to start a new life in a new environment,” Croal said.

As the Housing ministry continues its initiatives to further ensure it meets its goal of allocating 50,000 lots by 2025, the recently concluded International Building Expo saw about 2000 house lots being distributed.

Additionally, in July, President Dr. Irfaan Ali, while conducting a walkthrough in the new West Central Mall in Leonora, announced that some 7,000 house lots were being developed in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), as part of the PPP/C government’s drive to provide 50,000 house lots to Guyanese by the year 2025.

The development of lands in the region will help to address the backlog of 14,000 applications for Region Three, currently sitting in the database of the Housing Ministry’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) awaiting allocation.

“In this NDC [Stewartville/Cornelia Ida] alone, we are talking about the development in this area here alone, about 1,500 acres of land; 1,500 acres of land would give us here and there, 7,000 new house lots,” President Ali had said during a prior engagement.

The infrastructure costs, on average, to develop 1,500 acres of land is close to $10 billion, the Head of State said, “…and this is not 10 years from now. These are projects that are in the immediate pipeline, projects that have already started,” Dr Ali said.

He added: “In the medium term, if you have an occupancy of 50 per cent in five to seven years, then convert 3,500 [50 per cent of 7,000] by an average of $7 million and you will see the volume of transaction[s] that we’re talking about just in this locality.”

Under the government’s turn-key initiative, some 200 housing units are expected to be constructed in Anna Catherina and Meten-Meer-Zorg, targetting low and moderate-income earners.

Further, under the Inter-American Development (IDB) funded Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme, 25 core homes have been constructed for vulnerable families in Lust-en-Rust, Onderneeming, La Parfaite Harmonie, Recht-Door-Zee and Westminster. Those new developments, President Ali said, will be complemented by a $52 billion (US$260 million) new Demerara Harbour Bridge.