Residents of Lethem are planning to protest recent house lot allocations in the community, with most claiming that corrupt practices resulted in more lots being awarded to persons living outside the area.
Stabroek News understands that officials of the Housing Ministry travelled into Lethem last Wednesday to distribute house lots, based on applications it received. The ministry reportedly distributed close to 200 house lots for the Culvert City area and the Tabatinga Housing Scheme, in Region Nine.
As a result, residents plan to protest the situation at the regional administration office at Lethem, the PPP office there and they are also expected to travel to Georgetown to picket the Housing Ministry’s office in Brickdam.
Attempts by this newspaper to reach Housing Minister Irfaan Ali were futile, but an official at the ministry said it has received reports of dissatisfaction by persons in the community on the house lot allocation process and the situation is being examined.
Reports are that residents are incensed since they were not aware of the process until they noticed persons flocking the ministry’s office in the area. According to Debra McDonald, the situation on Wednesday was similar to previous exercises. The woman noted that “we would only see strange vehicles and a set of people from the coast and Boa Vista, that’s when we know something happening.”
McDonald stated that she has lived in Lethem since she was a child and now a 45-year-old grandmother. She applied for a house lot in 1996 but her application was never processed. She said she approached the authorities some time after and was told by the Housing Ministry that she should make another application.
She said she submitted a subsequent application to the agency in 2008 and was told each year since that her application was being processed. She said, “every time I go to the office when they in the region, they would tell me my application not here and that I should check back but yesterday [Thursday] I went back and I carry on.”
The woman said that later in the day on Thursday she was told that her application was ready and according to her she paid part of the $100,000 she was required to pay. “I mean I getting somewhere with my application now but only after I made it known to them that I ain’t able wait,” she said.
McDonald added that another woman who has been squatting in the Tabatinga area and who is an amputee visited the office and was told that she had to pay some $200,000. “Coretta don’t work; she is a diabetic. Where she will get that money from to pay? They unfair and it isn’t right,” she said of the situation, while adding that there were other persons in the community who were going back and forth between the border community and the city to determine the status of their applications and on most occasions they were unsuccessful. Reports from the area are that many Coastlanders and foreigners were in the line at the housing ministry’s office in the community to process their applications this past week.
Carlton Beckles, who has resided in the community for more than a decade, was surprised at the situation. He said that on Wednesday a number of foreign nationals, including Bangladeshis and Chinese, were in the line processing applications. “These folks had wads of cash in their hands just ready to pay and that alone told you that the ordinary Lethem resident feels cheated,” he said.
Another resident who asked not to be named told this newspaper that a businessman from the Boa Vista area in northern Brazil was at the office and the man and his family was upset that one of their employees could not have her application processed. “He was telling the people that the woman applied in November last year and carrying on but what about the people from this area who applied as far back as 1996,” the resident said.
He noted too that there are several business persons in the area who own as much as six house lots and “they were in the line waiting for more house lots for them to get processed.”
Beckles told Stabroek News that the authorities disbanded the Land Allocation Committee which was once the main body that presided over the allocation of house lots to persons who wish to live in the area.
He said that the committee was transparent and saw persons obtaining house lots irrespective of their status. He added that the Housing Ministry removed the committee several years ago.
“So what you have now is Housing [Ministry] in Georgetown processing the applications and it’s some type of underhand, skulduggery going on because most of the people who are obtaining three to four house lots are not from this area,” he said.
He added that there were no qualms about persons moving into the area, but the concern is that there are persons from Lethem and nearby areas in the region who have applied for house lots but their applications were never acknowledged in some cases.
