The Housing and Water Ministry will benefit from a further $3 billion in supplementary provisions, after the National Assembly yesterday passed the Supplementary Appropriation Bill (No. 3 for 2010), following a lengthy and somewhat contentious debate.
The additional funds are to improve existing housing areas and for the development of new housing areas under capital works to be undertaken by the ministry. However, the fallout in the National Assembly came after attempts by the opposition members to garner specifics about the projects were not met with adequate responses by Housing Minister Irfaan Ali. At one point Opposition Leader Robert Corbin said the public would see for themselves the “misinformation and lawlessness in this country”.
Corbin noted that the Housing Ministry has sought $6,730,000,000 in supplementary provisions from the National Assembly for the year in addition to the $680 million originally budgeted and queried why a project profile had not been presented to the House.
In response, Ali said the money will be used to “further satisfy the needs and aspirations” of many Guyanese. He pointed to the government’s aggressive campaign to bring housing to the citizenry of the country.
Ali’s lack of detail clearly vexed Corbin. “We’re here dealing with the taxpayers’ money,” an agitated Corbin said arguing that the law requires that project profiles be submitted to the House so that it can monitor how the money is being spent.
When members of the opposition benches accused Ali of bad planning, the minister staunchly denied this saying that since during the budget debate, he had said that more resources would be required to push the government’s housing drive. He said the additional sums would allow this sector to “steam roll into the future”.
Both Corbin and AFC MP Khemraj Ramjattan later asked whether any of this money would be used to acquire land from GuySuCo, but Ali did not respond directly to these questions. Earlier this year, a controversy was sparked in the House, over $4 billion that the Housing Ministry took from the Consolidated Fund to purchase land from the sugar corporation.
Corbin also questioned whether any of the money was being used to build the housing scheme now being constructed at Sparendaam, which has been dubbed “Pradoville 2”, but Ali did not address this matter either.
At one point in the proceedings, Ali began to identify a series of streets in Regions 10 and 5 that are to be built with the additional funds and subsequently promised to provide this information to the House. However, PNCR-1G MP Aubrey Norton questioned exactly what was being constructed in some of the areas identified in Region 10 suggesting that some of these projects were clearly questionable.
When asked by Corbin why the Housing Ministry was constructing roads when this usually fell under the purview of the Public Works Ministry, Ali stated that this was part of the administration’s inter-agency coordinate approach aimed at creating a development pathway.
Ramjattan also questioned the timing of the supplementary provisions, given that the 2011 budget was just months away. Ali again pointed to the urgency of the administration’s commitment to providing adequate housing. Ali said that his ministry is in a position to spend the money as soon as the House grants approval.
Last week the House passed the National Assembly passed the Supplementary Appropriation Bill (No. 2 for 2010), providing for $6,861,976,200 to be taken from the Consolidated Fund to meet a series of expenditure during the year.
