By Abena Rockliffe
Boasting that the quality of her team’s plan for housing development in Guyana is far superior to the vision of her parliamentary counterparts, Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues today told the House that Guyana is on the right track.
As she participated in the ongoing debates of Budget 2025, Rodrigues acknowledged the opposition’s argument that the PPP/C government is spending too much on infrastructure. She then repeated a question often asked by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo whenever that point is raised, “which project would you like us to cut?”
The minister further questioned, “which housing scheme we should not build…should we give out 500 house lots as opposed to 50k house lots?”
Rodrigues said that young people can be assured that they would not have access to house lots under an APNU+AFC government. “Because they had a chance and they failed miserably. You would think they would learn their lesson. They are now promising a rental subsidy. That is their bright idea to improve housing in this country and that is not new it is a recycled promise from 2015.”
Minister Rodrigues made the comparison that APNU+AFC’s initiative will “keep people renting” while the PPP’s plan aims to empower people by giving them home ownership, allowing them to pass the asset to their children. “This is how we are creating wealth among ordinary Guyanese; people can lift themselves out of poverty through our policies.”
Making the point that home ownership is not a one-sided affair under the PPP, Minister Rodrigues noted that some 69 percent of parliamentarians sitting on the opposition side have benefitted from the PPP housing programme. Further, she said that all opposition members have lots in schemes built by the PPP/C.
The minister noted that some 41,000 Guyanese have benefitted from the PPP’s housing programme, adding that 18,000 young single women benefitted over the last 4 years.
“Over 20,000 young people between ages 21- 35 now own their own homes or land but APNU+AFC’s big idea in government was a 50% discount on the remaining 50 percent of people house lots,” Rodrigues told the House.
She continued, “Then they went and build duplexes and didn’t amend the legislation to allow titles for those who paid for duplexes.” She reminded that it was the PPP that had to remedy the situation by passing legislation when it returned to Office.
Now, she said, the PPP is busy converting cane fields to house lots for the benefit of ordinary Guyanese.
The minister told the National Assembly that it costs $5M to create a single house lot. “When a low-income family pays 300k, that is only 6% of the cost, 94% is subsidized by the government. That is the beauty of the housing programme, transferring wealth. They can go to the bank and leverage the value of that house lot.” Rodrigues was quick to note that that value is increased with further development of the housing areas.
She noted that even with the distribution of lots, over 1600 steel and cement subsidies have been given to families. Further, some 129 core homes were built and given to beneficiaries who paid 100,000 for the property. Rodrigues said the target is to build 298 of those core homes. She also mentioned the distribution of 798 home improvement subsidies to help people have better quality living conditions.
