Dear Editor,
We refer to the Stabroek News article captioned ‘Many Plastic City residents still waiting for house lots.’ Much has changed in the housing industry in Guyana but who benefited most from the changes? We have observed the trend of ‘Taj Mahals’ being built with pools and million-dollar pool houses in Pradoville and at Leonora. We also observe that the government has no time for the mothers and children of Plastic City and other depressed communities. Rather the Minister of Housing according to the newspaper article claimed that he looked after Plastic City people already. So how are these poor mothers and their infant children continuing to live a life of hell in shacks?
Reading the story of Radica Ramdass, Dahlia Gouveia, Pinky Ganga, Sunita Darbhunauth and Donnett London was very sad and heartbreaking. Guyana has so many millionaires and yet right up the road we have such abject poverty? Based on the last estimate, it takes about $1.2 million to construct a low-cost house. Among these 5 families, that is $6 million. Where is the spirit of philanthropy in those who have gained so much from the sweat of the poor and the working class? What kind of government would spend billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to build the Marriott Hotel but cannot provide housing for its poor mothers and their children?
To add salt to their wounds, the Ministry of Housing not only demanded $92,000 from these powerless people, but also had them on a royal runaround. Any government that had the interest of the poor and the working class at heart would have immediately done the following:
1. Set up a special revolving fund to partially help a fixed number of mothers every year who live in conditions similar to Plastic City. Move them to dry land and new housing and burn the old shacks down. We call on the government to build 120 houses every year with a fund of $120 million to cover some of the cost, the remainder coming from the resources of the families and a small mortgage. We were advised there is such a fund to build houses for the poor but for whose benefit is it being tapped, not the mothers?
This PPP threw away $600 million behind someone who cannot even build a tomb for the dead, but was given a mega-contract to build a road which he could not finish, but they do not have $120 million for the poor mothers and children of Guyana.
2. Use the AFC model of establishing a building brigade of unemployed youths who will be offered a stipend and certification at the end of the period of training, to learn a trade building these low income houses for these mothers. This is a win-win situation; the poorest of the poor get better housing and the poorest and most unskilled youths get the opportunity to learn a skill to earn a better income, hence a better living.
What was shocking was Pinky Ganga lived there for 24 years. Did 20 years of PPP rule do anything for her? Why has this government abandoned the poor and the working class?
What was even more shocking that the Housing Act in its preamble makes it clear that it was designed to provide “Housing to persons of the Working Class.” Isn’t Pinky the poor and the working class? Isn’t she entitled to housing in a sanitary environment?
The Housing Act also made it clear that any land or building that had sanitary defects which are considered unfit for human habitation, will be demolished. Aren’t Pinky and others in Plastic City living in an environment unfit for human habitation? We have concluded that government which cannot take care of its poor mothers and children is unfit to govern.
According to the CHPA 2011 Annual Report, the PPP has some $2.7 billion in the bank ($1,100 million in Demerara Bank, $392 million in Republic Bank, $723 million at Citizens Bank and $500 million at GBTI) that was set aside for a low income revolving fund to help exactly poor mothers like Pinky. The operative question is since then what are these funds being spent on if they are not being spent on Pinky?
Yours faithfully,
Asquith Rose
Harish S Singh
