Private developers must play more integral role in housing policy

May 05, 2017 News

Private Developers have been called upon to play a more integral role as the government pushes to provide affordable housing to the populace.
This call was made by Minister Joseph Harmon, during the post-cabinet press briefing at the Ministry of the Presidency, Georgetown yesterday.
Harmon said that a White Paper has been laid in the National Assembly outlining some of the initiatives to be undertaken to provide housing to Guyanese by and beyond year 2020.
“That document will embrace the use of lands by the state; the use of lands by private developers; and the use of lands by individuals. There will be a holistic look at the allocation of lands.
What we had said when we came into office, was that we were not keen on just allocating house lots without anything else, we were looking at building communities…
“We did not want to give people house lots and then they go and build a house and there is no light, there is no water, there is no road. What we wanted to do was to ensure that the infrastructural developments take place in an orderly way,” Harmon said.
The Minister stressed the importance of private developers in the overall development of housing in the state noting that they “do have a place”.
“I just want to make that clear that private developers have a place and have an important role to play in the housing development of this country. I want to encourage private developers to come forward and start to take action on lands which you may have for development. Let us get this housing project going and so forth,” he said.
The call by Harmon would come at a time when the state is engaging developers, – many of whom would have been sold large swathes of land across Guyana by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration.
Many of these developers are yet to fulfil their contractual obligations to the state in delivering quality and affordable housing to the populace.
The intention by the former regime was to sell the lands to the developers in order to aid the government in providing homes to citizens since the backlog of applicants had risen to an all-time high of over 25,000. These lands were sold below market value.
However, there were instances where developers sold these lands to other private entities making massive profits.
Newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the CH&PA, Lelon Saul, told Kaieteur News recently that the authority is now in the process of engaging some of the private developers to find out what some of their challenges are.
Communities Minister, Ronald Bulkan, told Kaieteur News yesterday that the issue is still a cause of concern for the administration however, due to the legal aspects of these arrangements between the State and the developers; advice is being sought from the Attorney General (AG)’s Chambers.

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