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Opposition questions source of $2B for GuySuCo’s housing lands
CH&PA’s chief, Lelon Saul
The Opposition has raised questions about the $2B that will be spent to purchase lands for housing from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
Government announced this week that cash-strapped GuySuCo has asked for a bailout to pay workers and meet other critical expenses.
It was agreed that $2B would be released but under a deal with the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) for lands.
There have been no details on whether CH&PA has the monies or whether Central Government will release the funds to the authority to pay for it.
The monies were released this week with CH&PA’s chief, Lelon Saul, yesterday confirming that the lands are now being identified in Regions Three, Four, Five and Six.
Speaking during a press conference yesterday, Member of Parliament for the Opposition’s People’s Progress Party (PPP), Juan Edghill, questioned CH&PA’s “possession” of the $2B.
He noted that it was the Ministry of Communities’ Permanent Secretary, Emil McGarrell,
who had assured the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) earlier this year that all monies held by the authority would be transferred to the Consolidated Fund.
“Why is the money not coming from Central Government and the Consolidated Fund?” the Parliamentarian asked yesterday.
Edghill, a former Junior Minister of Finance, under the previous Government, noted too that it was the Coalition Government that insisted that practices of monies being held outside the Consolidated Fund by agencies, like the CH&PA, would stop.
PPP noted that the Government had also claimed that the finances for statutory bodies and government companies should not be kept outside the Consolidated Fund and had criticised the former PPP/C administration for doing so.
“If they are accusing PPP of all these wrongs, then I don’t expect them to be doing this. I am judging them by their own standards… is it then not logical to conclude they are lying to the Guyanese people,” he said.
“We are happy that GuySuCo is getting money, but we are concerned about the process being used to get this money.”
The Coalition Government, while in Opposition, had objected to agencies like the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Guyana Gold Board, Guyana Energy Agency, Guyana Rice Development Board and the Guyana Forestry Commission holding on
to billions of dollars without it being placed in the Consolidated Fund, which comes under scrutiny from the National Assembly.
CH&PA is facing major problems of finding new lands for its housing projects.
Yesterday, Saul noted that GuySuCo, which has six operating estates in Regions Three, Four, Five and Six, has over 4,000 acres of lands for sale under an initiative to raise cash to fund its restructuring.
The administration has identified Skeldon, Rose Hall and Enmore for privatization and closure.
Saul made it clear that CH&PA is highly interested in some of the lands to meet demands for housing.
There are more than 20,000 applications on file at CH&PA, by especially low and middle income earners for houselots and turn-key homes.
He said that CH&PA is hoping to have the lands ready as service lots by next year. Service lots are completed schemes with electricity, roads, drains and other infrastructure.
In the past schemes were opened up but much of the infrastructure was only completed years later.
It is not the first time that CH&PA has purchased lands for housing.
The lands from Diamond to Eccles, East Bank Demerara, would immediately come to mind.
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‘Government announced this week that cash-strapped GuySuCo has asked for a bailout to pay workers and meet other critical expenses.
It was agreed that $2B would be released but under a deal with the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) for lands.’
Is this the transparency and accountability the Alliance Parties were spouting about in their 2015 Manifesto and Election campaign?