Member of Parliament Annette Fergurson contends that “affordable and decent housing should be the priority of any Government”. In a recent letter to the press, the former minister under the APNU+AFC Government stated that “The rich continue to benefit from large acreage of lands, where development occurs, and houses/lots are sold at exorbitant prices to ordinary Guyanese.”
During the 2020 General and Regional elections, the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) promised to deliver 50,000 house lots. During the last two and a half years various numbers have been suggested by the Central Housing and Planning Authority as lots delivered. Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water Susan Rodrigues stated in her 2022 Budget presentation that the sector is now “rejuvenated” yet rants on social media and letters to the editor about long delays in allotments and bad infrastructure is a regular feature.
According to Ferguson, who held responsible for the sector and now shadows the Ministry, “The figures constantly shift, this is because of the misinformation the PPP/C regime continues to propagate. What they are failing to tell Guyanese is that half of those allocations were made by the Coalition Government in the areas of Prospect and Providence on EBD, Cummings Lodge, LBI, Strathspey, Annandale, and Vigilance on the ECD, Experiment in WCB, Fort Ordinance, Williamsburg, Numbers 75, 76 and 79 villages.”
She says the record is there to show that “under the first twenty-three years of the PPP/C Government, they never issued 20,000 house lots, nor 50,000 house lots in a five-year period.” Ferguson stated that the PPP has also failed to deliver on a coherent policy for housing.
