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RICH MAN’S WORLD

Jun 28, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

No poor person in Guyana will be able to afford to pay the sum of $6.7M which the Department of Housing is proposing to be paid for a low income housing unit. The only way that the poor person can afford that is if he or she goes to the bank and borrows the money over an extended period. And even this is going to be difficult for the poor person to pay.
It may have been better if the government had reverted to the old scheme of giving people land and allowing them to build at their pace and size. The poor man would have started with a small but affordable structure and as he earns money. A great many persons who need housing are not going to obtain housing because they cannot afford the mortgage payments even on a $6.7 million loan.
This is the dilemma which the government faces in providing low income housing. The private contractors are not going to provide a low income house for lower than $6 M per unit and this, is still unaffordable for the poor.
The problem of high housing costs is related to high material, labour and rental costs. Unless these costs are reduced, there is not going to be anything like low cost housing.
The State should not be contributing to escalating rentals. Because when this happens, it is the poor people who will suffer, not the rich.
Right now, house rentals are going through the roof. A small one-bedroom apartment in Cummings Lodge is going for $40,000 per month. Rentals are high, even in areas out of town. This is hurting the poor.
When the State is going to rent a house for a Minister for $500,000 per month, this will only serve to keep rentals out of the reach of the poor. No wonder squatting is on the increase. People want to live near to the urban areas and since they cannot afford the rents, they will squat as means of avoiding high rentals.
When the government is going to pay $12 M to rent a bottom house as storage bond for medical supplies, this will drive up commercial rentals and push many landlords to convert housing units into commercial units for rent.
The construction sector contracted last year. It means that thousands of workers in the construction sector are not getting regular work. This has forced many of them to up these fees. When the APNU came into office, a construction worker was demanding $5,000-$6,000 per day because they were being guaranteed at least four days a week work.
Now, some of them are only getting one or two days per week, if so many. And they are upping their rate to as high as $7000 per day. Poor people cannot afford to pay this exorbitant sum, especially since the workers want day work rather than job work so that they can stretch out their earnings. The poor is hurting from this measure. But who cares.
The cost of housing is also rising because of the increase in VAT on building materials. This has caused a great deal of confusion in the construction sector. Some of the lumber yards are not certain what items they have to charge VAT on. What they know is that they have to pay the VAT on electricity and water and so they have increased prices.
The small man is in a plight. He does not know what to do. He does not know what materials to use build his home because building a house in is no longer cheap and building in concrete is out of his reach.
It is a rich man’s world. And Guyana has a rich man’s government.

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