Progress being made on mapping new housing areas – Min Rodrigues

— says mapping will be a continuous process, Regions 5 & 6 ongoing

The Ministry of Housing and Water, which has been mapping new housing areas since last year with a view to opening up new areas and clear the thousands of housing applications the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government inherited last year, is making steady progress with its mapping exercise.
In an exclusive interview with this publication, Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues, was asked for an update on the mapping exercise.

According to her, personnel from the Ministry of Housing and Water are presently actively engaged in mapping exercises in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) and Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), and mapping would be a continuous exercise.
“The areas are coming along fine. This is taking place across several regions. Regions Five and Six (are being) actively pursued right now. We are looking forward to the new set of allocations that we’ll be able to make,” she said.
“In a few days, we’ll be announcing allocations for the Diamond area on the East Bank. Region Four has the largest number of outstanding applications, so there’s a heavy focus on Region Four, but we’re going to try to equalise and take it to all the regions.”
In a bid to demarcate new areas for housing schemes even as space runs out in Region Four, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) had commenced surveys in November of last year. It was a multi-agency effort, as the CH&PA had collaborated with the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC), the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
As at August 2021, the PPP Government had processed close to 2000 titles and transports in its first year in office, while starting construction on 1000 houses and conducting massive infrastructural work – all part of an over $14 billion investment in the housing sector.
Since coming to office, the PPP Government has made it clear that it is aiming to fulfil its manifesto promise of distributing 50,000 house lots over the next five years. The Ministry of Housing and Water has also said it would work with other State agencies to make more land available for housing development. Those agencies include the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL); the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo). The aim is to pursue land acquisition for housing development.
This year, the housing sector received a total allocation of $8.9 billion in the budget. Of this sum, $6 billion will go towards infrastructure and utility works in new and existing areas. This will pave the way for the allocation of over 10,000 house lots and 7000 land titles to citizens.
The Government has also gone countrywide with its Dream Realised house lot distribution campaign, an exercise that has so far distributed over 4000 house lots and over 500 land transports.
In the Government’s first four months in office, 3500 house lots were distributed – an amount equal to half the number of house lots distributed during the former Government’s five years in office.