By the next six months, persons applying for house lots should be able to have their applications processed in a “fully automated” system, Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali has said.
He made the disclosure as the ministry’s ‘One Stop Shop’, an outreach programme to eliminate the backlog of house lot applications and improve its efficiency in the delivery of goods and services, commenced yesterday at the Uitvlugt Community Centre, West Coast Demerara.
The outreach continues today at the same venue before moving to other parts of the country. The programme aims to address general housing and water issues, including allocation and identification and payment for house lots, processing and distributing of titles and transports and addressing customer complaints, bill queries and leakage reports.
Yesterday morning over 300 persons turned up and Ali, in his address at the opening, said while he was not satisfied that the best service available was being provided, given the constraints, they were trying. He noted that the ‘one stop shop’ concept is not new but has now expanded and it will also determine how effectiveness and efficiency can be improved.
Guyana Water Incor-porated (GWI) was part of the outreach and the minister said he was very dissatisfied with the way the company responds to reported leaks in the region. He emphasized that what is reported at the outreach will have to be fixed within two days and once that can happen within that period, the same can obtain at normal times.
According to the minister, the programme will go to every region and in the medium term, within the next six months, he said, they hoped to have a fully automated application processing system, and a “front-desk, point-of-sale system”.
“Within hours you can get your acknowledgement”, he said, adding that the system will eliminate three months from the process. He asserted that the system will be interactive and will allow the applicant to go online to follow the progress of the application. He declared that the objective is to create an organization that is highly people oriented.
The minister also acknowledged that persons, including community leaders in Region Three, have been engaging in fraudulent activities in relation to land and declared that such people will be caught noting that he wants the organization to have strong internal control measures.
He further said that in the near future, the ministry will be able to provide real time information on house lots and will have “geo-mapping” of the various schemes. Ali told the gathering that he is not satisfied with the level of occupancy in the schemes in the region and noting that a lot of money is expended to develop the land, said that the government is subsidizing plots to the tune of $475,000.
Meantime, Chairman of Region Three, Julius Faerber welcomed the initiative and said that over 300 persons were present yesterday morning.
Persons present also welcomed the outreach. Rehanna Seetahal told Stabroek News that she had applied for a house lot since 2007 and was hoping to get the process completed yesterday. She said she was glad that the officials came out of the city. When this newspaper left, persons, depending on what they were there for, were being sorted out to be placed in various lines.
Additionally, representatives from the banking sector and developers were present. The outreach at Uitvlugt ends today.
