The government is strengthening its capacity to clamp down on instances of fraud and squatting in the housing sector, Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal disclosed today.
“We want to make it very clear, it is only at the Ministry, at Brickdam, regional offices or when we have special exercises like today, ‘Dream Realised’, where payments are done…Anywhere else you’re making a payment, can’t be to the CHPA,” the Minister said on the issue of fraud within the housing sector.
In recent times, several persons have been busted purporting to represent officers from the Ministry of Housing’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) who are authorised to receive payments for house lots.
“We have strengthened our investigative arm as well as our enforcement arm so in our employment now is somebody with experience, one former senior person from the hierarchy of the Police Force, for which we’ve been undertaking a number of investigations to go after,” the Minister said.
One of the most recent cases of a housing scam involved 29-year-old André DeFreitas, a real estate agent of Lot 159 Cow Pen Street, Eccles, and Lot 1205 Diamond New Scheme, both on the East Bank Demerara (EBD), who was released on $250,000 bail for attempting to collect $100,000 from someone to secure a house lot for them.
It was previously reported that the man was nabbed by the Police during a sting operation. Based on information reaching this publication, DeFreitas claims to be the owner of Prime Investments and that he has a contact at the Housing and Water Ministry.
Meanwhile, the Housing Minster also re-emphasised the government’s intention to clamp down on squatting.
“We must recognise and repeat that squatting is illegal. Taking occupancy of somebody’s land is illegal. But yes, you have a loving and caring President and Government so we have been working with many of those areas to help them. We evaluate whether it’s an area we can regularise–because many of these that exist are probably as old as myself, some of the persons who lived there–or if we have to relocate then we indicate so,” Minister Croal said.
