“I don’t know about that, if a special pipeline was laid. I know it has water but whether it’s special or not I wouldn’t know if it is gold-plated or silver plated or what,” he said, while responding to questions from reporters at a press conference at State House.
PNCR-1G Shadow Minister of Housing Aubrey Norton had raised the issue during the 2011 Budget debate two weeks ago. 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,’ as the housing scheme has been dubbed. Norton 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, the President has announced an expedited water service for Dazzell Housing Scheme. Sparendaam residents have told this newspaper that the main to the new housing development was laid some time around October/November last year. It was laid although homes are not yet completed
On Friday, responding to a statement that the government has generally not been responsive to questions about the housing scheme, the president responded that he and Housing and Water Minister Irfaan Ali had dealt with the issue already and it is the same issues that came back “over and over.” He said that he cannot continue to deal with one thing all the time. “I don’t know whether this is [a] gold-plated water main or not. I have to dig it up and check it,” he added.
Guyana Water Incor-porated (GWI) officials have refused to answer questions on the issue and Ali also refused to answer questions posed by Norton in Parliament. Ali has also previously refused to answer questions posed by Stabroek News on the scheme.
Speaking to this newspaper, Norton had said: “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. [But] 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.
Jagdeo said on Friday that the Dazzell Housing Scheme is one of the few places on the East Coast that doesn’t have water. “We couldn’t go into Dazzell Housing Scheme because it was a co-op,” he said. He said they have now decided to disregard this and put in water lines. Another housing area without running water is Angoy’s Avenue in New Amsterdam, Jagdeo said and he added that there is an ongoing court case so water lines cannot be laid. He pointed out that water supplied across the country has expanded and 17 new water treatment plants have been built. “I would hope that every scheme we do we put money aside to fix water. The new housing scheme that we’re building at Providence, we’ve put water there too,” he added.
On the question of whether persons who obtained lots at Sparendaam are lot owners or would have owned other house lots within a given time frame, thus making them not eligible for another house lot, Jagdeo said that he wouldn’t be able to react to that. “From my impression [it’s] that nobody who owns the land now would have the land there. That’s what I was told. Nobody should have another piece of land at this time,” he said.
Asked whether the land was purchased through the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Ltd (NICIL), the President responded, “I wouldn’t have a clue” and he didn’t check. He then clarified that he had purchased his land there from the Ministry of Housing and Water. “All are housing,” he said.
Jagdeo had previously acknowledged that he is one of the persons building houses at Pradoville 2. 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. He explained 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.
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. Among the questions that have been raised about whether the land was advertised publicly and how it was allocated and valued.
