Shocking proof of the PPP regime’s mistreatment of house lot applicants

Oct 27, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) has issued a notice to 100 house lot applicants between 1991-1993 to come in on or before November 10 to discuss their respective submissions. Just in case you think 1993 is a typographical mistake, it is not. The PPP came to power in 1992 and started a housing programme with the initial location being Eccles.
From thereon, the corruption began. This columnist has evidence that a senior female party leader (not Mrs. Jagan; she was Stalinist alright but not corrupt) took millions from working people to get lots. And how do I know that? Because two of my relatives paid her. Donald Ramotar as General-Secretary of the PPP can deny what will follow in the next few lines right now.
I went to his home in Alberttown in 1994. It was a long yard corridor and his house was the last one in the stretch. I told him what the lady was doing, because she took money from my relatives. Ramotar and I knew each other well before 1992 and he told me there and then he knew what was taking place with the allocation of house lots.
Let us get into the shocking part of this notice. If you were a soldier, police, nurse, teacher, civil servant between 1991 and 1993, it means as we are about to close 2017 (just two months remaining), you will more than likely be reaching 55 years of age – the required time of retirement. You will now read a notice from CHPA asking you to come in to discuss your house lot prospects. If 25 years after you signed the document, you are still interested, then, what did you do with your life the past 25 years?
There are 83 applicants for 1993 (along with 1 for 1991 and 16 for 1992) that are being summoned to CHPA. Where are those persons now? Surely, they could not still be waiting. But there is tragic dimension to the lives of these 83 persons if they are still interested. If they were 30 years and over, they are no longer in receipt of a salary. As civil servants, teachers, soldiers and policemen, they would have retired.
Now we must assume that at 30 years, they would have sought a mortgage and paid from their salaries or secured a bank loan. At 55, the banks do not lend money to employees, the reason being is that they feel you have little time left in your occupation and you may default on your payment schedule.
If you are still thinking of building, you will be turned away from the banks because they do not lend money to persons who are not gainfully employed. I would assume very junior ranks in the police and army that retire would not be earning lots of money in their post-retirement status. Do the citizens of this country know that in 1988 when Dr. George Walcott retired as Vice Chancellor of UG, his pension created a scandal in this country? It was just under 4000 Guyanese dollars. Don’t take my word for it; research it.
So here we are as 2017 is about to close, 83 house lot applicants from 1993 are being asked to visit CHPA. Where are those people now? I doubt whether one percent of that number is still interested. So we come to the inevitable question – What was the PPP Government doing with those persons’ documents since 1993? The answer is that they were tossed aside in favour of the friends of the PPP and their middle class supporters. Look who has become a rising prince in the PPP leadership –former Minister of Housing, Irfaan Ally.
Since 1993, do you know how many housing areas have been secured by private developers, most of whom were friends of Bharrat Jagdeo. I walk my dog at the back of Giftland Mall every night, including last night, and I park just outside the entrance of Eddie Boyer’s private gated community. No need to repeat the colossal profits he made from that purchase. Kaieteur News has all the details; just Google it.
President Jagdeo telephoned a man in Barbados who at the time earned a Wall Street salary as President of the Caribbean Development Bank. He offered Dr. Compton Bourne a one-acre house lot in Pradoville 2. During all this time, working class folks who applied in 1993 never heard back from the Government of Guyana, a government that Donald Ramotar wrote about last week, saying it was the most glorious government in the history of Guyana.
If the PPP ever returns to power in this country, I will participate in its removal, even if I am in a wheelchair.

1 thoughts on “Shocking proof of the PPP regime’s mistreatment of house lot applicants”

modesty blaze October 27, 2017 at 9:22 am

Well said. I found myself clapping . Yesterday’s correspondence is the result of todays article. The PPP regime messed a lot of lives up and now the current government is trying to clean the mess up, citizens expect miracles in less than 3 years of leadership.