The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) yesterday launched the Home Construction Assistance Facility at New Amsterdam and Skeldon in Region Six.
Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal who spoke at the launch in New Amsterdam, told the small gathering at the Regional Democratic Council of Region Six, that the programme was crafted by President Irfaan Ali to “help you to reduce some of the financial challenges that you may face, financial challenges in the sense of being unable to access loans for one reason or the other.”
Croal pointed out that persons may have experienced financial challenges since “at the global level you may have seen increased costs etc.” According to him, persons in Berbice especially have had challenges in constructing homes so “this programme is intended to help you to assist such finance for you to build a home.”
Present at the launch of the programme yesterday were representatives from Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited and the New Building Society (NBS).
Croal pointed out, “Whether it is a house lot that is allocated by government or whether you have your own private land” residents can apply to be selected.
He stressed that in order to provide assurance to the financial institutions, proof of ownership of the land must be provided. Once that stage was complete, residents were able to communicate with the financial institutions on the spot where representatives then guided them through the process. Croal stressed that the financial institutions were not hindrances but were there to assist “because from their perspective too they would like to have (a) maximum loan portfolio.”
The New Amsterdam meeting saw a small turnout and people seemed to not fully understand the programme. A few persons who visited the location to apply for the programme explained that in the past they were not able to qualify for loans sometimes even due to the lack of one document although they are owners of a plot of land, as such they found that such a programme was necessary and beneficial to them.
Others visited the location to check on their house lot applications and other services offered by the regional housing department.
Stabroek News was told that at the New Amsterdam location there were 25 registrations with seven persons prequalifying for help via the NBS.
Croal explained that there are three categories/models of houses – $7M, $9M and $12M “so you will be able to see the design and based on your income, based on a certain valuation that they will do then although you may aspire for the $12M the fact remains that your circumstance may not be able to qualify you for that you still have an option of the ($) 9 (M) and ($) 7 (M).”
He encouraged people to “think wisely in terms of what you would like for yourself” stressing that the assistance programme is open to as many as possible and will be continuous “because we want to encourage home ownership, we want to encourage construction so this is another opportunity that we are providing as a government to be a facilitator…”
The Minister then stressed that from the level of his ministry Region Six has ongoing works to the tune of $1.1B. Part of the work programme is the construction of 100 houses at Fort Ordnance, 30 of which were to be allocated to persons on the spot yesterday, Croal noted.
He pointed out that the government’s overall mandate is to provide 50,000 house lots before 2025 “and we will beat it.” According to him, Region Six has close to 6,000 pending applicants “and we intend to satisfy and respond to those applicants.”
The home construction aid facility was announced by President Ali on May 16th in an address to the nation.
He said then: “The government will support the applicant through the process of applying for bank financing to meet the cost for constructing the home and will also look at helping in the initial phase of construction by the release of resources to expedite the construction process and help in bringing the banks and homeowners together so that you can own your own home”.
The President explained that while they will help in the process of applying for bank financing to meet the cost of constructing the home, the title to the house lot will be pledged as collateral. Noting that many persons have been expressing interest in homes already constructed under the Ministry of Housing and Water’s homeownership drive, he said that government will also construct homes on behalf of applicants.
“Government will also undertake the construction of a home on behalf of the applicant and deliver to the applicant a complete home in accordance with the option selected. We expect that this measure will help to drastically accelerate the capacity of Guyanese families to own and occupy their own home,” Ali asserted.
