Guyana’s Housing Minister declares no discrimination in land allocation process

Guyana’s Housing and Water Minister, Collin Croal dismissed the notion that the government is discriminating against a certain group of Guyanese in housing programmes being rolled out countrywide.

“We don’t practice discrimination, we take into consideration one variable and that is you have to be a pending applicant,” Croal said while speaking at a recent allocation exercise at Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara, Region Three.

“If the demographics look a particular way here [in Region Three], it is what is it is Region three. When we go to Linden and the demographics look a certain way, it is what it is in Linden. If we go to lowlands on the east coast and the demographics look a particular way it is what it is,” Croal said.

He continued, “Similarly, when you pull a lot from the envelope, we don’t know what your neighbour will look like.”

The minister pointed out that when the government took office in August 2020, it met a backlog of 70,000 applications, with only 7,000 house lots distributed during the coalition’s five-year tenure.

The housing and water minister stressed that the current government has since implemented an aggressive national housing programme that has seen over 17,000 house lots distributed to Guyanese in just over two years.

Croal also mentioned the turn-key programme which allows persons in the low and moderate-income bracket, and young professionals, affordable housing options. Further, some 1,200 units are currently being constructed in Regions Three, Four, Six and Ten.

Additionally, in keeping with its manifesto , the PPP/C led Government declared that they are committed to delivering 50,000 house lots − 10,000 annually to Guyanese within its first term in office.