–with aim of reducing existing backlog for land/houses over next four years and beyond, President Ali says
PRESIDENT Dr Irfaan Ali has announced that the government will roll out a new social housing strategy in the coming weeks aimed at further cutting the national housing backlog over the next four plus years, while directly targetting Guyanese living with disabilities, single parents and those in extreme vulnerability.
Addressing the opening of the 2026 National Building Expo at the National Stadium, Providence, on Thursday, the President said the administration is redesigning the sector to ensure that vulnerable groups can access decent, dignified housing rather than being left behind as the demand expands.
“In the coming weeks, I’ll be outlining with great clarity a housing-development strategy that will reduce our backlog to zero in the next four plus years, but more importantly, a strategy that will directly target the different segments of vulnerability in our system; persons living with disability, single-parent persons living with extreme vulnerability,” the President said.
He stressed that the objective is not simply to allocate land, but to ensure that the most vulnerable can live “in dignity.”
“We are designing a system that will allow you to have a home in which you can live in dignity, and in the coming weeks I will outline a clear strategy of how we are going to deliver homes to people who meet this criteria… and at the same time how we’re going to invest in the low, moderate, and medium income homes to meet the expectations of the people of Guyana, at a scale of which the expectation is growing,” he said.
Dr Ali signalled a structural shift in the government’s approach, with policy moving steadily from the allocation of house lots to the delivery of completed houses, including turnkey units for specific categories of beneficiaries.
He noted that there has been a clear movement “towards homes instead of land,” driven by growing confidence in the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) and the Ministry of Housing to deliver finished units.
The President said many applicants are now seeking transfers into young professional and other housing schemes, as they opt for built homes rather than raw lots.
BACKLOG TO BE ERASED
The forthcoming strategy is to be layered on top of an aggressive title-processing programme already underway. Between 2020 and 2026, some 30,000 land titles have been processed, and just over 20,000 remain outstanding.
Dr Ali pledged to compress the next phase dramatically.
“I can assure you that what we took five years to process, we will not take a single year, because we’re going to back the system to clear the backlog of all titles that need to be processed,” he said.
