Homeowners will now have a chance to interface with the contractors of their turnkey homes and request modifications, as the Board of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) has decided to terminate the government’s system of supplying building materials to contractors because of mismanagement.
“All in all we are attempting to retool…We asked the authorities to have dialogue with the groups when work is started, so that once the persons are identified for a particular area they can meet the contractors,” Chairman of the CH&PA Hamilton Green told Stabroek News in an interview.
However, the building of new turnkey homes has been halted so that the Board can review the process and make a decision on the way forward.
“We inherited a bond that was empty. It was regularly broken into and the materials and fittings stolen and to date no one has ever been apprehended by the police… We will find another use for the bond, but that right now, is small potatoes,” Green said.
“We want people to get value for their money. So that we don’t just dump persons in a structure, and give them two bedrooms, a light and a toilet. If John or Lilawattie has paid for a home they can see the contractor and if a room is being built with two outlets and they want three or four they can work out an arrangement and have it… It gives them intimacy with their new homes and interface with the contractors,” he added.
He explained that construction will now not be limited to just one contractor for all the homes in a community, as was currently the case, but will be tendered out in lots so that various companies will be building homes on the square footage at the same cost but with varying designs.
“The Board is looking at new means of building. We met a system with persons called foremen where the authority was providing material to build homes. But the thing is, they can’t, to date, tell me how much material has been lost over the years so I proposed that we allocate by tender, groups of houses to contractors who as business people will ensure the material is not stolen as what is happening now… So the homeowner will be given a chance to meet the contractors building their homes. This new plan CH&PA believes can guarantee value for money as the homeowners will be able to monitor the works being undertaken,” he said.
“When I took over as chairman, I was very concerned about the low quality of workmanship and materials on many of these so-called turnkey houses. With the other board members we have proposed a halt so that there will be development of a new plan. Right now we will only permit the completion of homes which already [are] halfway or three-quarters way complete .We found instances where homes were not occupied because of complaints by the potential home owners and their families of poor quality work. I am telling you, from walls cracking before completion, floors, doors everything. So we put a halt on any expansion to allow us to come up with a new regime, a new modus operandi that should save us from the misuse of funds so that the home owners are the real beneficiaries and not a group of persons with certain connections,” he added.
He said evidence showed that the work was poor and it was not limited to the houses as roads were also of a poor quality, potholed-riddled with inferior materials used as the base.
‘Old Sawakie’
The CH&PA Board Chairman said that last weekend he visited a developing housing scheme at Perseverance, East Bank Demerara and was shocked at the poor quality of homes being sold to residents there.
A former Minister of Housing himself, Green said he broke away from other officials as he wanted a “real feel of the place and to really talk with the people” because sometimes officials are shown the best parts of a project and kept away from talking to persons with complaints.
“I like to talk with the people. So I walked away from the group and went my own way. I know what happens, when people don’t want you to see or hear certain things they want to limit you to a planned path. I am an old sawakie, you know, I know the ropes,” he quipped.
“I was concerned that already there is indiscipline because there has not been any proper management by the authorities. People were constructing over the drains [and] there seemed to be no order … We found dozens of houses flat on the ground in an area that is similar to Georgetown with concerns about flooding. There seemed to be business as usual. Some of these large areas, it seems no one seems to have given sufficient thought to doing what, even as laymen, was fundamental, and that is drainage. There were two drains that are supposed to lead to the Demerara River that were all silted up and no one seemed to care. We are building houses merrily and no one seems to care about drainage. I discussed this matter with the Minister of Public Infrastructure and we are working out a plan to protect the new residents if there is heavy rainfall because they are west of a conservancy,” he added.
Because of the unpredictable weather patterns, and the fact that there is a conservancy west of the community, Green said he instructed the technical team at CH&PA to formulate a variety of designs with the same square footage but for the houses to be built on stilts to elevate them above street level.
He said his idea met with some resistance with “one smart Alec” telling him that the conservancy can never collapse and there was no need for caution as it was sturdily built.
Private developers
Private developers who were given lands under the PPP Administration and have not yet completed the works will have a chance during the upcoming weeks to explain to the Board why this is so.
Green said he has already met some of the persons and informed them that they need to state the reasons for default.
“That is a matter that the ministry and the board will have to take into consideration. I called them in because every story has two sides and I’ll be calling in the rest over the next few weeks. Let us hear what they have to say and then we take it from there,” he said.
