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A HOUSING PROGRAM IS URGENTLY NEEDED

Oct 07, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
At the minimum, the country owes the people, especially the poor and the lower working class an opportunity to acquire decent housing, but the unabashed free market capitalist system that was perpetuated under the Jagdeo and Ramotar administrations has failed the people, and has helped their relatives and rich friends.
Decent housing should not be a privilege but a right for the people in Plastic City, Pigeon Island, Tiger Bay and several other depressed communities. These people are on the fringes and they have to deliberate whether they should spend their meager income on food or transportation or paying the GPL bill.
Guyana should revert to the pilot system of social housing that provided affordable houses to the poor and move them from squalor and into habitable housing.
The APNU+AFC government has to dismantle the Jagdeo/Ramotar housing model that was designed to satisfy the needs of the rich and greedy and not the poor. It is time for the depressed communities to be developed into affable housing schemes and not the mud lots without proper drainage systems that they arbitrarily sold to the poor.
How can Guyana prosper when its beachfront lands are sold to members of the then PPP ruling elite at less than real market value while the working poor are ask to pay astronomical prices for far less prestigious house lots. This was the wicked, evil and corrupt practice carried out by the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal. They have left the crumbs for the APNU+AFC government and the people.
If the APNU+AFC government is committed to provide low cost housing to the poor and the working class and create employment for the youths then it should adopt the Ayanganna Construction Housing model which is inexpensive.
While the Minister responsible for housing, Keith Scott is working to clear the backlog of some 25,000-house lots for land titling purposes, the nation is still without a housing policy, which means that those who are interested in acquiring their own homes for their first time in 2015 will not be able to do so. They might have to wait for another year or two until the backlog is cleared up.
The government is aware that a housing policy should be not be a state secret but should be made public in every possible publication for the people to know. People have to plan their lives and they cannot wait forever to know when the sun is ever going to shine on them when it comes to getting their first home. They should not be kept in suspense, after all, they voted for change.
The Coalition Government has promised every Guyanese who wants to own a home access to affordable Housing and they plan to move beyond house lot distribution to the building of houses. But after four months, the nation is kept in the dark about the government housing plans.
It is in the interest of the government to inform the people about their plans. The state has a role to build social housing for the very poor who cannot afford to partake in the private sector house rental market or much less the home ownership market. After all, the good book said in Proverb 19:17 – “whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he shall repay him for his deed.” It is time for a housing revolution in Guyana.
The people are desperately in need of houses but the road ahead is going to be tough since the biggest problem today is to keep the rice, gold, bauxite and sugar industry from melting down. As the people wait for the commencement of the journey to fulfill the promise that every Guyanese will have “access to affordable Housing”, their patience is running thin. We hope that the powers are listening.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish Singh

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