800 more persons receive house lots on East Bank

Some 800 more Guyanese are now closer to homeownership, as the Ministry of Housing and Water hosted its ‘Dream realised’ house lot allocation exercise at the National Stadium, Providence on Friday.

The moderate, middle and high-income house lots were allocated in the Grove Diamond Block-1 Housing Development, to persons who have been waiting for years.

Beneficiary, Christopher Edmondson praised the government’s housing programme which he said is in keeping with its manifesto promise. 

“First, I want to thank the Government of Guyana for a fantastic initiative that they took and it’s a clear indication that when they were campaigning this is one of the things they said in their manifesto. So, I want to thank them for this opportunity they have given me,” Edmondson said.

He said he waited a very long time for the opportunity to own his own home and plans to start the process of construction once he is able to identify his land.

A young teacher, Karen Hazel said she was interviewed for her land in 2013 and has been waiting on this day since.

Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal noted that infrastructural projects and road upgrades on the East Bank corridor for this year will see the government investing close to $14.8 billion.

This will see new infrastructural work being done in Great Diamond, Golden Grove, Little Diamond and Peter’s Hall, as well as road upgrades at Herstelling, Perseverance, Peter’s Hall and Eccles. The contracts for these works will be signed shortly.  

“When the cost for the construction of the new four- lane highway from Eccles to Great Diamond, which stands at $13.3B is added to the new stock of projects, the total sum for new investments in the East Bank corridor is expected to be a staggering $28 billion,” he announced.

Minister Croal reiterated the government’s commitment to reducing the demand of subsidised housing. He further noted that the intention is to make affordable housing available to every Guyanese in keeping with President Ali’s ‘One Guyana’ concept.

Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues, M.P spoke about the role of homeownership in building strong families and sustainable communities.

“Owning your own home is an extremely empowering thing…We want to get you to homeownership, we want you to move beyond getting a piece of land, we want you to achieve homeownership and that’s why we have made so many interventions like zero rating construction materials,’ she said.

Meanwhile, a number of persons also received their land title/transport for lands they received in recent years. Last year, the ministry distributed over 10,000 house lots while 14,000 more applicants will be facilitated this year. This will take the government closer to achieving its target of delivering 50,000 house lots by 2025.