Chaos as Housing Ministry hosts public exercise – House lot distribution put on hold

Oct 17, 2020 News

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Kaieteur News – A distribution, information and application exercise held by the Ministry of Housing and Water led to scores of people flocking the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, yesterday , with some under the impression that the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) was sharing out house lots.
The activity, which is first of its kind since the new government took office, was slated to start at 10:00 am but citizens formed long lines along the corridors bordering the East Bank Highway and the Guyana National Stadium from as early as 8:00 am.
Despite obvious arrangement in place to help the public conduct their business in a manner that was in keeping with the guidelines that safeguard against the spread of COVID -19, there were clusters and crowds of people everywhere making enquiries about the process and availability of lands.
Many persons looked to seize the opportunity to meet with housing officials to enquire about their lands. However, some of the eager participants were left sorely disappointed as they misunderstood the title distribution exercise to mean that the Housing Department was meeting with the public to allocate lands.
In fact, in a previous interview, Minister of Housing and Water, Colin Croal had emphasized that the activity was for no such purpose. He had explained that the benefactors of the drive were those applicants who had finished paying for their lands over a period of time and the Housing Department was ready to hand them their titles or transport documents which will prove their ownership of the properties.
Minister Croal had said that there are about 500 persons in the system that will be handed their title documents during the two-day exercise slated for Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17, 2020.
“We will also allow officials from the CH&PA to meet with the public, for those who wish to make applications and so on. Some commercial banks, insurance companies and so forth will always be out there with us to help give persons the information they need on mortgage financing and so forth …but there will be no allocation of house lots at this exercise as we have explained before that has been put on hold,” he had said.
Minister Croal was present at the exercise yesterday, along with other senior government official including President Irfaan Ali and Minister within the Housing Ministry Susan Rodrigues.
Croal had expressed the hope, during the previous interview that the activity would be conducted in a manner, which is in keeping with the COVID-19 health and safety guidelines, but as hundreds poured into the stadium yesterday, it was evident that was not going to happen even police barricades provided some of the reinforcement needed to help contain the anxious crowd.
Earlier this week, the CH&PA published several advertisements in the daily newspapers notifying persons who had completed the payment for their land that the titles were available to be handed over. The advertisement under the caption “DREAM REALISED” indicated the exercise was for title distribution, application and information. There was no mention of land allocation.
In the meantime, CH&PA has been emphasizing to the public that there are currently no lands readily available for distribution. In a recent interview with the media, Minister Rodrigues had explained that the new administration has inherited several issues that must be resolved concerning the allocation and infrastructure of house lots.
“Because persons were issued letters to inaccessible lands, under the previous administration, the Housing Ministry will now have to put the allocation of house lots on hold; while the necessary groundwork is done to allow persons to be properly allocated so they can begin building their homes,” Minister Rodrigues had said.
“Let me say, that house lots do not exist. There are just muddy plots of land that do not have any infrastructure…To compound this, many of the areas that have been allocated, the transaction, the transfer of those land has not been made to CH&PA. So, that is contributing to the backlog and unless we properly acquire those lands, do the infrastructural work which we are mandated to do and then properly allocate them, that’s the only way we can start to roll out our programme,” she explained.
Minister Rodrigues noted that the Ministry is currently targeting the preparation of lands.
“The basic infrastructure, such as water, electricity and roads to create access to those plots of land will have to be installed. We have to identify areas that are currently controlled by CH&PA and begin infrastructure in those areas. [Therefore] to deliver on our promise, we have to now look for additional areas, the land we have to first acquire and then carry out infrastructural work before we can allocate those lands and we will remain steadfast to that commitment,” she had emphasised.

 

 

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