More housing relief with accelerated turn-key housing programme – Guyana Chronicle

THE government’s turn-key housing initiative will be accelerated in 2023 as part of efforts to provide relief to people all across Guyana, Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal, said recently.

“As part of our focus in 2023, (there will be) more emphasis on home construction… we want to, in a fast-tracked way, be able to encourage home-ownership,” Minister Croal was quoted as saying by the Department of Public Information (DPI).

Under the turn-key programme, more than 1,200 low, moderate and young professional units are under construction in Regions Three, Four, Six and Ten. Already, over 300 houses have been handed over to beneficiaries.

Through the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme (AHUAP), a number of homes are being constructed targeting low income and vulnerable families.

The project to construct houses was conceptualised by President Dr. Irfaan Ali, who had initiated the turn-key housing initiative when he served as housing minister prior to 2015.

The focus on this turn-key programme and other much-needed housing initiatives were revitalised when the PPP/C Administration got into office in August 2020. Since then, a national housing programme aimed at providing affordable housing opportunities for Guyanese has been implemented.

In keeping with its manifesto, the PPP/C Government is committed to delivering 50,000 house lots to Guyanese within its first term in office. Over 19,000 house lots have been distributed thus far for 2022.

While the government has been rolling out its housing programmes countrywide, it implemented a number of other measures to encourage home-ownership, with the latest being the steel and cement support for home-builders.

Minister Croal said over 150 applicants went through the verification aspect of the programme and within two weeks, the ministry will commence issuing the vouchers for those persons to uplift their materials.

Additionally, under the AHUAP, vulnerable groups are benefitting from home improvement subsidies up to $500,000 to carryout repairs on their properties.

“When you look at what we are doing to encourage homeownership, homebuilding these are some of the interventions that we have,” Minister Croal pointed out.