The housing ministry is currently in discussion with Guysuco to acquire some land from the company for housing development as it strives to reach its ambitious target of distributing 17,000 more house lots.

From 1993 to 2008 the ministry issued a total of 76,888 house lots and issued more than 42,000 titles.

Minister Irfaan Ali said  the availability of sufficient land is one of the constraints but he noted that he was still confident that the target could be reached.

“So we are working to have this constraint removed so we can earmark new areas for development and this is the process that we are going through now. We are in discussion with them to see how we could expedite the process,” he said during an interview with Stabroek News recently.

The land, he said, is located primarily in Regions Four and Three and is under the control of the sugar company.

Meanwhile, Ali lauded the increase in the number of local financial institutions which have introduced measures to facilitate access to low income earners. This grew from two to five in recent times.
Stimulating mortgage market
He noted that now low income earners could borrow up to $3M and repay at an interest rate of 4.95% over a 20-year period. “This in a sense has stimulated the mortgage market and created competition among financial institutions resulting in the lowering of the interest rate from 9% in 2001 to $4.95% in 2009,” he said.

In this regard he pointed too to the amendment of the New Building Society Act and the Income Tax Act which has also served to provide easy access to finance for allottees.

The minister through this amendment could issue a letter of assurance to the bank which guarantees security  so the loan could be processed even before the transport is issued. Ali said this saved  time and gives quicker access to resources.

In previous years prospective home owners would have had to submit titles to their lands before obtaining confirmed access to loans, but currently the institutions have accepted letters of assurances from the  minister which are used in  lieu of the titles for the loans to be processed.

Ali pointed out too that the ministry has since gone further and currently advises low income earners, in particular,  on regulations and building standards, code designs, optional drawings and designs which they can use to match their level of income, free of cost.

This, he said, was to help them so they would not be exploited.

Ali said a number of benchmarks were set at the beginning of the new year.  He pointed to the allocation figure for this year, saying that the ministry wanted to allocate 1,500 house lots by December but already it has gone past that target due to the ‘one stop shop’ initiative.
Under this initiative, Ali and staff from the ministry would visit various communities and persons who fit the criteria are interviewed and receive notification either on the spot or soon after the completed allocation process.

The ministry has also set itself annual indicators and so far a staff evaluation has been conducted. Areas of strengths and weaknesses are identified along with opportunities for improvement.