Minister Croal inspects East Bank Housing Development Project

– pleased with pace of work

Minister of Housing and Water, Hon. Collin Croal says he is pleased with the pace of the ongoing works for Government’s Housing Development Programme on the East Bank Demerara (EBD).

The Minister visited several sites on Friday, where he inspected the projects and interacted with contractors.

His first stop was at Providence 115, where works are ongoing on the road network, drainage and water connection.

“We have ongoing works for like $246 million that should bring the road network for the crusher run and of course, you must run the pipes for the water so that we don’t have to dig it up again. The completion timeline for this is some time in August and that will allow access to about 215 allotees,” Minister Croal said.

Over at Prospect, 100 two-bedroom, low-income homes, measuring 600 square feet, are under construction. Minister Croal said he is pleased that the project is also providing jobs for Guyanese. At least five persons are working on each home.

Currently, four contractors are clearing the land for allocations at Prospect Phase III, after which works will commence for the road network. Upon completion, close to 600 house lots will be available to citizens.

Meanwhile, works are also ongoing at the Little Diamond project, which has six lots. Land preparation and alignments are being carried out by surveyors on five of those lots, while the access road has been completed for the sixth. Further works will start in the new week.

“For this area alone, we are talking about investments about $1.1 billion, and that is for the basic infrastructure work, land preparation, road network and the water and drainage connection,” Minister Croal said.

Minister of Housing and Water Hon. Collin Croal and Deputy Director of Projects, Mr. Intakab Indargeet

When completed, the area will benefit 729 allottees.

The Minister also visited Great Diamond, where contractors are developing ten lots. So far, work has commenced on nine lots. The tenth was re-tendered and Cabinet has given its no objection to that contract.

“We are talking about $1.6 billion dollars in land preparation and the basic infrastructure work, that’s inclusive of the roads and drainage networks putting the road to crusher run and to allow commencement for construction for the individuals to access the area.

Minister of Housing and Water, Hon. Collin Croal and contractors at Great Diamond

I’m pleased with what I have seen so far, but I came here to have a first-hand look as to what is happening on the ground, to listen to the contractors themselves, what challenges they may have also.

So basically, some have completed the land preparation, some are on land preparation stage and now all the surveyors are all doing their work,” Minister Croal said.

He said more surveyors were recruited to ensure that the works are completed in a timely manner.

“From here on we will be monitoring for the implementation. We want to ensure that these works are done on time. There are thousands of persons here on the East Bank that are eagerly awaiting to access these lands to construct their own homes and, in some cases, await the completion of the construction of houses,” he added.

Minister Croal also visited the site of the recently built Great Diamond to Mocha access road. While the road has been completed, a bridge is still needed to connect directly to the Mocha access road. The land has already been cleared for this and, the Minister pledged to engage the contractor on completing the bridge as soon as possible.

“You already have that portion between Providence to Eccles that you can access and then ongoing to the final phase it’s the Eccles to the Mandela four lane, so that – we’ll do a separate visit.

The land clearance is almost complete and work has basically commenced. In the new week, the work to be done on the hard surface will commence and those are six lots so we are pushing them.”

• A section of the cleared land
• Preparation for road network at a new housing development on the East Bank of Demerara
• Several low income house lots under construction at Prospect, EBD
• Workers constructing a low-income house at Prospect, EBD

The Minister noted that thousands of people are waiting to use the road, which will ease traffic congestion along the East Bank corridor. The Government, through the Ministry of Housing and Water, is working to provide 50,000 house lots to Guyanese within five years.