THE POOR WILL COUNT THEIR DEBTS

Jan 14, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The shock announcement concerning the Ministry of Housing and Water for 2010 was not the application for a three billion dollar supplemental provision. It was in fact a report in the media which indicated that the government would be providing house lots for remigrants.
This report came as a total surprise. But even more astonishing was when it was stated that already, some 600 applications were received.
The media has been strangely silent about this matter and the manner in which it was sprung upon the Guyanese people. When did the government decide to establish a scheme for remigrants? Why was no formal announcement made? And how is it that those 600 persons knew that they could apply?
Did the members of the media in Guyana know that remigrants could apply for house lots? Did they know that forms can be downloaded from the Ministry of Housing and Water website for persons residing in Guyana who are interested in applying for a house lots, but that when it comes to remigrants, you have to log in and obtain a password?
How is it that it could have been reported in the media that some 600 applications had been received from remigrants? Are these persons presently in Guyana, because to be a remigrant you have to return, or are they intended remigrants?
Do we have six hundred remigrants living in Guyana at present? If so, how many of them already own their own home. If these six hundred applications relate to persons still residing overseas, then why are they being allowed to apply from overseas and not when they take up residence in Guyana?
Why on top of all the preferences that are given to returning Guyanese, does the government have to make provision for housing for them? Should the Ministry of Housing not have waited until these persons returned home before taking their applications? What about if the applications are taken, approved, and the person returns to his or her foreign base after receiving the allotment.
The Ministry of Housing can hardly effectively monitor local applicants who would have previously owned property, much less to add to this the burden of monitoring whether those who received house lots as remigrants would continue to live in Guyana or would simply use the lot for speculative purposes.
There is no reason why with so many poor persons in Guyana still awaiting their allotment, the government should be distributing lots to persons who are being encouraged to remigrate. Why should overseas-based Guyanese, most of whom are rich by local standards, enjoy house lots when there are many poor persons in Guyana still awaiting lots?
The lots that are going to be given to these rich remigrants are going to be in a prime location. Even if they pay a premium price for the lot, it will appreciate by virtue of the fact that it will be located in a high-end scheme. As such, these remigrants will end up becoming richer simply because they would have received a house lot from the government.
It is hoped, therefore, that the local media would take the opportunity when next it presents itself, to ask some serious questions about this plan to allot house lots to remigrants.
It should not be happening. There are too many poor Guyanese who need house lots to extricate them from the clutches of poverty. Those who are coming back to Guyana can afford, more than afford, to purchase property on the private market. State land should be left to give the poor people a chance, but with all the talk about lots for remigrants and public/private partnerships in housing, it seems as though the rich will continue to benefit more than the poor under the present administration.
The report in the media is going to lead to a situation where the Ministry of Housing is going to be swamped with applications from overseas-based Guyanese asking for house lots. The Ministry therefore needs to clarify just what it is doing; why it is doing what it is doing, and how things will be done.
The remigrant housing scheme will cause problems and will lead to situations whereby many overseas-based Guyanese will claim that they are returning home, when in fact many of them have no intention of doing so, but only wish to have the house lot to add to their long list of assets, while the poor in Guyana count their debts.

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