Dear Editor,
I am forced to respond to assertions made by Mr Hydar Ally in his letter, ‘Government’s housing drive is changing the landscape’ (SN, June 5). While I appreciate his praise for the New Building Society and recognise that the housing drive in Guyana is indeed changing the landscape, his assertions that “there can be no doubt that the housing drive initiated by the [PPP/C] government along with easier credit arrangements facilitated by the banking sector have impacted significantly on the housing sector making it possible for thousands of Guyanese to own their own homes, which under the previous PNC administration was a distant dream for the average Guyanese family. Many Guyanese were forced into squatting on state lands in order to obtain a roof over their heads,” may be an attempt at deception, or reflect the fact that he does not know what he is talking about.
My problem is specifically with the last part of the above statement, namely, “which under the previous PNC administration was a distant dream for the average Guyanese family.” As I have mentioned before I was a member of the Young Socialist Movement during my teens but never graduated to being a full-fledged member of the PNC, so this is not an attempt to represent the PNC. In fact it is an attempt to set the record straight and to vent my frustration at Mr Ally’s propaganda.
The frustration is coming from the fact that while being a resident of Sparendaam, where on many occasions I had a problem getting water for a bath before going to work, I was going into sugar estates as a building inspector, authorising fuel and repairs for pumping stations to ensure that sugar workers had water to prepare their meals before they headed out to the canefields in the wee hours of the morning.
I think the Burnham administration and the PNC did a lot more for sugar workers than they get credit for. In the seventies and early eighties the emphasis was on sugar, rice, and bauxite. Those industries were among the top export earners. While I cannot talk about rice and bauxite I can say that as a Draftsman and Building Inspector with the Sugar Industry Labor Welfare Fund Committee in the seventies, I saw up front the then administration’s efforts to make a success of the sugar industry and make life as comfortable as possible for sugar workers. Some are going to argue that it was sugar money returning to the sugar workers, but I saw a preference for the sugar industry as opposed to villages like mine where we lived in hell.
Can Mr Ally distinguish the boundaries of the following areas/villages before 1964 and what they eventually became by 1992 ‒ Den Amstel, the area just before Leonora (can’t remember name) Leonora, Stewartville, Uitvlugt, Ocean View Uitvlugt, Meten-Meer-Zorg, Zeelugt, Tuschen, Versailles, Wales, Patentia, Tain, and other areas in Berbice? With the help of the Sugar Industry Welfare Fund Committee the PNC developed a wide expanse of housing areas to extend these villages in the ’70s and early ’80s. Don’t forget a lot of sugar workers bought their lots for $1, and got low interest loans to build houses ‒ better rates than what NBS now offers, while I recognise that NBS was involved and played a part since then.
Of course the PNC opened up a lot of other housing schemes outside the sugar industry and were heavily criticised – places like Atlantic Ville, Happy Acres and Melanie Damishana, while nothing was said about those in the sugar industry.
Squatting was a fad that became more pronounced mostly under the Hoyte administration. Admittedly, Mr Hoyte was not aggressive about opening new housing areas. He wanted to do things more by the book. For instance, when the Sophia squatting craze started I was in it. My brothers and I joined others in clearing antidesma trees for house lots on land belonging to Bookers/GuySuCo. Mr Hoyte’s stance was that he would not be allowing squatting until government acquired the land. We were chased off and never went back. Those who persisted now have homes in Sophia, which was not accepted until Dr Jagan began his administration.
But do not forget that Mr Hoyte was not very comfortable with having new housing areas on the coast, an area below sea level and with the possibility of new housing areas contributing to more flooding as was evident in 2005. There was Ocean View Uitvlugt, which was built under the Burnham administration and an Ocean View, Better Hope.
I watched the development of Ocean View, Better Hope, starting as a squatting area on a vulnerable piece of land close to the sea wall. It was a struggle for the area to be ratified and I thought that area would have been the last village on the coastal plain. But then came the expansion of Sophia, an extension beyond and behind Sixth Street Cummings Lodge. Then land in the Diamond area became available and the pile on of housing on the coastal plain persisted. Only time will tell about the wisdom of these settlements.
Yours faithfully,
F Skinner