Now that there is a well established housing programme on the coastland, the Ministry of Housing and Water is venturing to shift towards the hinterland and in this regard the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) has embarked on a Hinterland Housing Programme to provide affordable homes to persons living in various communities.
Towards that objective, the Ministry of Housing and Water is set to establish a project for 200 families under the second Low-Income Settlement (LIS2) Programme.
This venture will be funded from an Inter-American Development Bank US$27.9M loan and will be implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, which will be working on the designs for schemes.
CH&PA’S Chief Executive Officer (CEO),  Ms. Myrna Pitt, said that the agency is presently in the process of developing two prototypes for the houses, at Whitewater in Region 1 (Barima/Waini) and Kwatamang in Region Nine 9 (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo).

This commendable objective is in accordance with a long stated goal of the ruling party, that is to bridge the socio-economic gap between the coastland and hinterland which historically has been a very wide one. Of course, this has been so because of the neglect of development in hinterland communities over a long period spanning both the colonial and post-colonial eras.
According to Minister of Housing and Water, Irfaan Ali: “We are in the process of selecting, ideally, eight areas in which we could make initial interventions and see the building of 200 low-income homes within hinterland communities. This has a number of benefits. It will bring community life closer, foster greater integration, collaboration and cooperation among the people.”

During the colonial era, virtually no attention was paid to development in the hinterland and following independence the government of the day did not do much either. Whatever little it did  was done in a haphazard, unplanned and uncoordinated manner. The end result was that every facet of socio-development in these communities was stagnated and the hardships and poverty increased, thereby widening the gap between the coastland and hinterland.
What this government has sought to do is to implement a comprehensive, systematic and organised approach to hinterland development, instead of an ad hoc and piecemeal one.
If one were to analyse this approach, it would be found that there are simultaneous programmes to improve education, health services, infrastructure, road and river transport, electricity and potable water supply and economic ventures to empower the indigenous peoples to develop their entrepreneurial and commercial skills. And this has nothing to do with electioneering as the cynics are wont to believe and propagate. On the contrary, it all began with the vision of the late President Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who incidentally made a one-week visit to The Rupununi in 1996, with a view to assessing the needs and addressing some of the pressing problems of the indigenous peoples, thereby establishing for the first time in Guyana a Ministry of Amerindian Affairs. But from the inception of his political career, he had a keen and committed interest in  uplifting  our indigenous peoples. However, because of financial costs and logistical problems, he could not have visited as often as he desired. Nevertheless, later on as his party’s organisational strength grew, one of his tested lieutenants, Harripersaud Nokta, became the “pioneer” of the interior.  It is widely believed that there is no one in Guyana who knows the interior better than Mr. Nokta.
This government headed by President Bharrat Jagdeo has continued and gave meaning to the vision of Dr. Jagan by implementing appropriate policies and programmes.
Under the LCDS(Low Carbon Development Strategy), hinterland development will be further accelerated as this programme caters for enhanced education, infrastructure and electricity supply.
But housing, along with food and clothing is one of the necessities of life and therefore this Low-Income Settlement venture is a most progressive step towards improving the lives of the hinterland people. This is further testimony to the fact that the government has been honouring its promises it has made to the all the people of this country, whether they voted for it or not.