“How visionless can you be if you don’t want people to own things” – Jagdeo scoffs at Norton’s criticisms of PPP’s housing policy

− Says APNU+AFC prefers to have Guyanese pay rent all their lives

Opposition leader, Aubrey Norton has once again come in for major flak for his criticism of the PPP/C Government’s housing policy, which has seen thousands of Guyanese benefitting over the past two and half years from home and land ownership.

In fact, more house lots have been allocated under this administration in just under three years in comparison to the APNU+AFC’s five years in office. This was on Thursday reiterated by General Secretary of the PPP, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo during his weekly press conference at Freedom House, Georgetown.

Dr Jagdeo said the PPP has made housing one of the most vibrant sectors in the economy.

“Guyanese now have homeownership, land ownership… because of the policies of the PPP and as recent as the 2015 to the 2020 period, they [APNU+AFC] did very little to enhance that,” the general secretary pointed out.

He noted the audacity of Norton, that with such a track record, “he comes to criticise the PPP about its housing policy and how visionless can you be if you don’t want people to own things, you just want them to rent all their lives, but he sees a virtue and in this.

“Clearly, he has nothing to do, and his advisers should tell him to stay away from this issue because it can’t win his party any sympathy in the Guyanese populace at large.”

Norton at a recent press conference said the APNU+AFC would assist Guyanese with rent, a notion dismissed by the general secretary as ‘divorced from reality’.

He reminded that Norton comes from a party, which has a terrible track record as it relates to housing.

“This a leader who comes from a party with a track record that since Forbes Burnham died, that they never had a housing programme and led to a massive backlog of people living in very terrible conditions and not having the dignity of ownership, even closing down the Ministry of Housing,” the general secretary stated.

The PPP in its manifesto promised to provide 50,000 house lots during its first five years in office. The lots allocated to date total some 22,500.