Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal, on Tuesday said that the recent land distribution exercise was intended to commence the reduction of the backlog of applications noting that the persons that were issued with house lots were required to have had applications in the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) database.
In December the Ministry through the CH&PA embarked on a land distribution exercise under the theme “Dream Realised Housing Drive 2020”. Last week Croal disclosed at a housing drive that the ministry had distributed a total of 3,600 house lots in regions Three, Four, and Six.
He had stated that the 3,600 figure must be measured against those in the system since there is a registered backlog of 70,000. He acknowledged that those 3,600 persons have been waiting for quite a while in the system as he stressed that they could not have allocated the lots so quickly without the support of President Irfaan Ali.
“The criteria used by the agency remains the same for decades – persons who were issued lots first must have an application in our database and would have provided all supporting documents when that application was made. Secondly, those allottees would have met the requirement of not being owners of any other property,” Croal told Stabroek News day.
He went on to say that upon allocation each recipient was issued with an offer letter indicating where the land is located and also, the price of the land. Persons were required to make an initial payment and then told that they had an additional six months to complete the payment.
Persons were allotted lands in Anna Catherina, Plantation Cornelia Ida, Plan-tation Edinburg, Plantation Stewartville and Plantation Meten-Meer-Zorg in Region Three, while in Region Four, persons were allotted lands in Cummings Lodge/Industry, Little Diamond, Great Diamond, Plantation La Bonne Intention, Plantation Annandale, Plantation Vigilance, Plantation Bladen Hall, and Plantation Strathspey. In Region Six persons were allotted land in No. 75 Village Skeldon, Corriverton; No. 79 Village, Corriverton; Williamsburg/Hampshire, and Ordinance Fortlands.
When asked if any infrastructure currently exists in these areas, Croal responded that the first set of contracts for infrastructure work in these areas were only awarded on November 10, 2020.
“To complete those works, bids were tendered/advertised which closes on January 12 & 13, 2021. Following that process, additional works will commence so that these areas will be complemented with all the necessary infrastructure,” he assured.
