Gov’t’s housing solution, a fast-track method to homeownership – Housing Minister

The PPP/C Administration’s implemented sustainable housing solution is a fast-track method for citizens to acquire their own homes. This initiative has thus far been fruitful.

This was conveyed by the Minister of Housing and Water, Colin Croal M.P., in an exclusive interview with DPI earlier in the week.

“This is a fast-track method for persons to own their own homes and the system is very simple,” he said.

Minister Croal outlined the process which applicants undergo to determine their qualifications to benefit from the programme.

“First of all, the applicants have to be within our system. They have to be pending applicants, then secondly we conduct a pre-qualification to examine the category for the type of houses the persons will be able to benefit from and then we send that information on to the bank… they engage that individual and once they’re successful, the bank sends back their name and then we make the necessary allocation,” the minister said.

Minister Croal also stated that the government’s housing initiative is an ongoing one and one that is being recognised.

“It’s an ongoing programme and certainly we’ve had positive responses and even recently we’ve had the Minister Duguid, responsible for Housing in Barbados would have visited Guyana and he would have recognised the ambitious programme that we have for the citizens of Guyana,” he said.

The housing minister noted that the banks have been playing a critical role in supporting this initiative as many of them have also reduced their mortgage borrowing rates to facilitate the Guyanese population.

“They recognised that they can have a number of potential persons be able to borrow and so they’ve been very supportive and they’ve been involved in helping on quickly pre-qualifying persons,” the minister noted.

This initiative, the minister reiterated has many other economic benefits for the people of the country.

“There are a lot of spin offs, of course, because in the construction sector itself, apart from employment benefits there’s a lot of trickle-down impact of persons in transportation, for persons who sells snacks at the corners, various persons are involved, of course the suppliers for materials will benefit too so it’s a domino effect once you have construction and so that is why we’ve been driving the process to have more homeownership,” he said.

The minister noted that it is the government’s commitment to allocate 25,000 houses to citizens at affordable prices within its first term in office.