The water main for the new “elite” housing development at Sparendaam was laid late last year, according to residents.
Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) officials refused to answer questions on the issue by Stabroek News. When approached on Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer of GWI Yuri Chandisingh said that he would have to refer the questions to Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali.
Ali was questioned on the issue by PNCR-1G Shadow Minister of Housing, Aubrey Norton as the Committee of Supply examined the estimates of expenditure for 2011 in Parliament on Wednesday but Ali also refused to answer. Ali has also previously refused to answer questions posed by Stabroek News on this scheme.
Norton first raised the issue during his contribution to the Budget 2011 debate last week. He had said that the “elites” continued to abuse their power by running a main from the water plant at Better Hope straight to ‘Pradoville 2’. He said this was done while residents of Dazzell, Bare Root, Victoria and many housing schemes along the East Coast Demerara still do not have access to water. Since the questions about the Pradoville 2 water supply were raised, President Bharrat Jagdeo has announced an expedited water service for Dazzell Housing Scheme.
Sparendaam residents have meanwhile told this newspaper that the main to the new housing development was laid some time around October/November last year. The new housing development is on the grounds where NCN’s radio transmitter was once sited. The transmitter has been relocated to the West Bank Demerara. Questions have been raised about whether the land was advertised publicly and how it was allocated and valued, among others.
President Jagdeo is one of the persons building houses there. He has said that land for housing has never gone to tender and the land was allocated to people in the cabinet who didn’t have and so on. The president had said that he paid $5 million per acre and those building in the new scheme include cabinet members, professionals, people from the army, police, some regional chairmen, among others.
Speaking with Stabroek News on Wednesday, Norton had said that he was told of the water main being laid. “Normally you would take it off of the normal main but you put a special one and that raised concerns,” he said. He noted that moving the NCN tower cost a lot of money. “It was evident that it was for some special reason they were moving it and expending the kind of money to achieve the objective they wanted to achieve,” said Norton. “Unfortunately the objective of that being a elitist housing scheme,” he added.
Referring to his budget speech, Norton said the special water main smacked of elitism. “If you’re a government, first you must serve the people and if areas want water and you’re not giving it to them, well you say you don’t have the resources to give it to them and then suddenly you can get the resources to run a direct main and give there water before the housing scheme is completed then clearly you can’t be serving the average man because there is a housing scheme that is getting water before the actual completion of the houses while housing schemes with hundreds of houses have no water and still waiting and you say there is a shortage of resources. That to me smacks of elitism,” he said.
On Wednesday, Ali refused to answer questions asked by Norton on infrastructural works being undertaken at Pradoville 2. Ali said that he did not “have to answer anything about Sparendaam” but rather questions on estimates on the 2011 budget under the relevant budget profile.
He also said he was “not aware of any government housing scheme at Sparendaam.”
Norton had also asked the minister “what is the actual cost of putting a water main direct from Better Hope to Sparendaam” but Ali said he could not say under what budget profile the question was being asked.
In his budget presentation, Norton had said that the administration’s establishment of ‘Pradoville 2’ signals that the country’s elite have given themselves the right to claim lands as they see fit. “This housing scheme signals to all that the elite in this country has devolved on itself the right to parcel off the lands of the people to itself and to even go close to the seawalls in violation of the law and with no consideration for the challenges posed by climate change they claim will have negative effects on Guyana,” Norton had said.
He had strongly criticised the establishment of the new housing scheme and accused the government elite of “abusing power and giving itself the best of what Guyana has to offer.” His statements about the new housing scheme at Sparendaam went unchallenged as Ali did not respond to any of the allegations during his presentation.
