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New clause in houselot agreement deals with misrepresenting information
- Minister Ali tells applicants at Lusignan One Stop Shop


Georgetown, GINA, September 24, 2011
Source - GINA

Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali addressing houselot applicants at the Lusignan Community Centre[/img]

Government’s highly successful housing programme that has elevated the living standards of thousands of Guyanese and enabled them to realize their dreams continues to make other citizens happy.

Staff of the Ministry of Housing and Water on Friday processed 248 house lot applications for low income earners for lots in Mon Repos and Good Hope, East Coast Demerara during a One Stop Shop exercise held at the Lusignan Community Centre Ground.

This is the ninth successful One Stop Shop for this year that has become popular around the country, taking the housing ministry’s services to the people.

Banking officials and representatives from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) guided and assisted applicants to process their documents at the activity.

Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali said that persons try to manipulate the system to acquire more than one lots.

“ Our programme is based on equity, it is based on quality, it is based on transparency and accountability and that is why we have taken this approach of publicly having the allocation done and there are a number of reasons why this approach is critical”.

A list of those allotted houselots would be publicly published on the notice board of the Neighbourhood Democratic Council so that it can be reviewed. If any person is found to have misrepresented information to the CH&PA, there is a new clause in the agreement of sale that speaks directly to the misrepresentation of information.

“This process allows us to have public scrutiny so that we can identify such persons,” said Minister Ali.

He also spoke of persons especially in the new housing schemes who would mix the cement in the middle of the roads that the Government has built, warning that it would not continue to allow this blatant disrespect and disregard for the investment and infrastructure that has been put in place.

The agreement of sale allows persons 24 hours to remove any material that they would have dumped on the shoulders of the road. Failure to do so will result in a very high fine. “The fine is not there for us to make money. The fine is there for us to change the culture, to ensure that persons adhere to this rule. It is the right thing to do,” he stated.

He said President Bharrat Jagdeo believes that every citizen, every family must have equal access to basic necessities of life and housing falls under that category.

“Of course, housing, education, water, health; these are all issues that fall under that social category of this government. We have invested $114M in these two schemes; we will collect $25M at the end of six months. That means that $89M has been subsidized by the government. More than 345%, $89M has been subsidized by government,” Minister Ali stated.
He said for every single low income household, when they get their houselot, they would benefit from a subsidy of $359,000 from the government.

Residents at the Housing Ministry’s ninth One Stop Shop at Lusignan for Mon Repos and Good Hope applicants

“After years and years of neglect to the housing sector … so we (government) have to build a new sector, reconstruct the housing sector and people must take cognizance of this VAT. We have over the years, on the East Coast alone invested in more than $16B. More than $16B was on housing and road development. Right now we have the miscellaneous roads and the community roads development project that alone is almost $1B,” the Housing Minister stated.

The Ministry’s Community Road Improvement Project (CRIP) is being instituted in 12 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils in Regions 3, 4, 5 and 6. Over 200 roads are to be to be rehabilitated or rebuilt.

Land Allocation Manager, Denise King-Tudor said, the Ministry’s aim is to elevate the standard of living for citizens.

“This is evident with the massive infrastructural development taking place in our schemes and the increase of house construction being executed by beneficiaries of the housing programme. Within the last three years, we have established several housing schemes as we seek to reduce the demand for housing expressed by the population,” she said.

Earlier this month, 500 houselots were processed at the eighth One Stop Shop for 2011 at Zeelugt, West Coast Demerara.

In 2009, there were 12 One Stop Shop exercises in Regions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10; while in 2010, there were 15 such interventions carried out in Regions 2, 3, 4, 6, 8.

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