Mere days after the Ministry of Housing and Water opened applications for its home construction assistance programme, the ministry is reporting that hundreds of applications have already been filled and submitted from persons across Regions Four and Ten.
Speaking to the News Room on Friday, Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water Susan Rodrigues said the response has been overwhelming since the facility was announced by President Irfaan Ali and subsequently launched on Monday.
“We have had a few hundred people registered already at our Region Four office and in Linden,” the minister said.
She said it was an amazing project that will allow low-income earners to not only own house lots but also to secure government assistance to build their own houses.
She said the current arrangement where the government builds houses and then sells those houses and lands was just part of the remedy to the problem of people not being able to build their own homes.
“There are people who acquired house lots five and 10 years ago and are still unable to build…so this is why this programme is so necessary,” Rodrigues added.
As envisioned by Presidents Ali, the programme seeks to accelerate the government’s housing drive, while also addressing challenges faced by Guyanese families who have acquired lands but are unable to build their homes, due to inaccessibility of financing and issues with contractors.
Already, the programme is being expanded to cover other administrative regions.
“We want the facilities to be given to everyone equally…mainly in the coastal regions and wherever we have housing schemes,” Rodrigues explained.
This assistance extends to persons with both government and private house lots; some lots may not be in government constructed schemes.
Through this initiative, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) and the banking institutions will now be under one roof at CHPA’s Head Office.
So far, the New Building Society and Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited are on board.
Applicants will be assisted with the process of bank financing to meet the cost of construction. CHPA will also be constructing the homes for the applicants, who can choose from three pre-designed units for $7 million, $9 million and $12 million.
