Housing Ministry working with partners to acquire lands for 78,000 applications backlog – Croal

– as over 52,000 applications pending in Region 4
Housing Minister Collin Croal has disclosed that his ministry is working along with other State agencies to acquire lands across the co

untry to fulfill the more than 78,000-application backlog for house lots.
In a recent address on the Government’s five-year plan for the housing sector, Croal explained that while they were able to allocate over 53,000, there is still in excess of 78,000 pending applications in the system.
To meet this demand, he noted that “…we are continuously working to find land [and] to engage with our partners in terms of Guyana Lands and Survey Commission (GLSC), NICIL (National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited), GuySuCo (Guyana Sugar Corporation), and in Region Five’s case, for example, MMA (Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary Agriculture Authority), to be able to acquire additional lands to address these backlogs.”
According to the Housing Minister, the government is committed to completely clearing the backlogs in the various Administrative Regions across Guyana except for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) – the country’s most populated region.
In fact, of the 78,000 pending house lot applications, Region Four accounts for more than 52,000 of the backlog.
“The largest block, however, continues to remain Region 4…that’s where our largest volume [is]. So, we are committing, therefore, that we will clear the backlog for all of the regions, except we’ll be unable to do [it] completely for Region Four…[but] we’ll work to minimise as much as possible,” the housing minister assured.

Construction of homes
In its last term in office, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration had committed to allocate some 50,000 house lots across the country – a promise it surpassed. During this new term, the Dr Irfaan Ali -led Government aims to construct 40,000 new homes, that is, 8,000 houses annually.
During his December 17 Address to the Nation in which he detailed the PPP/C policy agenda for economic and social transformation of Guyana and Guyanese over the next five years, President Ali indicated that, “Many persons who want to own their own homes are now telling the ministry we don’t want a land, we want you to help us build because of the difficulty in managing contractors, because of the time it takes from them to go and build their home, to buy materials, the stress – they will be saving all of that, and it is because of this high demand from people directly for the government to support the building of the homes that we need to build these 40,000 homes.”
In response to this growing demand for fully built, move-in-ready (turnkey) houses, Minister Croal pointed out that the ministry had moved away from the practice used during the last term of utilising only local contractors and the traditional way of building homes which saw the construction of only 4,000 houses over the last five years.
“This time we went out for Expressions of Interest (EoIs). We received over 268 responses of persons or companies expressing interest for the construction of what is called modular houses. So, in that way we can have volume,” he noted.
These EoIs were extended to contractors beyond Guyana to include those from around the Caribbean region.
As it relates to the new modular houses (prefabricated buildings), these will be done in three categories: low income, moderate income, middle income and high income or young professionals.
“And believe it or not, the demand for young professionals has increased over these last few years… As persons become professionals and as they work [with] their busy lifestyle in terms of having to earn, the hassle of dealing with contractors to be able to move around, to buy materials to build – they are seeking government to cushion that.”
“And what we have now is a huge demand of persons who are coming through these doors and are seeking what they normally call turnkey houses versus just the [land] allocations. And we want to respond to that… As a responsible government, we have that mandate to respond to increasing requests or to revise our work programme in keeping with what the electorate are seeking,” Croal noted.
The Housing Minister added that they have already identified the areas where these houses will be constructed, and in the new year, the government will be engaging the more than 260 responses received with the view of selecting the contractors so that works can commence.