The Ministry of Housing is currently engaging the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to acquire lands to meet the demand for housing in Essequibo Islands-West Demerara (Region Three).
Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues made this disclosure following an engagement with the Chairpersons of 14 Region Three Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) on Tuesday, to discuss issues relating to housing and water.
She revealed that the demand for housing in the region stands at over 10,000 pending applicants at the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).
“So that’s one year out of our five-year programme if we are to look at it like that, of the 50,000 house lots. Region Three’s demand alone is 10,000 so we have to take a unique approach to the Region and I think it is justified.”
Minister Rodrigues explained that a technical team was established and has been meeting regularly to decide on the proposed areas for housing development.
“Of course, we have competing interest with GuySuCo because we are reopening some of the sugar estates so they may have a demand for lands as well…we want to ensure that we balance the interest and that we agree on which areas will remain under cultivation and which areas will be for housing.”
In the interim, the Minister said they are looking at extending some of the existing housing schemes including, Stewartville, Edinburgh and Anna Catherina.
Additional works are also in the pipeline to upgrade the physical infrastructure in several areas including Tuschen and Zeelugt. This will be done in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works.
“We want to encourage persons to build because the occupancy is very low in some of these housing schemes. We know that if we invest in these schemes persons will be encourages to build and occupy their house lots,” Minister Rodrigues said.
This year, the PPP/C Administration allocated $3 Billion for infrastructure development in new and existing housing schemes.
