Dear Editor.
As Brian Arthur, a famous economist once said, “What differentiates a great leader from a good one is their ability to understand the new rules of the game as it is being played.” We broke 2016 with the bottom 20 per cent of the people on the economic ladder in real crisis. The population that sits at the bottom 20 per cent of the nation, have inadequate housing and this has to be fixed. The slothfulness of the coalition government in approaching this housing situation in 2015 was also not very helpful. But there is absolutely no reason not to fix it.
I support the decision of the President to reshuffle Junior Minister Keith Scott out of the Ministry of Housing since he has done a poor job at developing a road map to deliver on the APNU+AFC manifesto promise on housing. The promises in the manifesto are clear: “…. provide modern housing accommodation to selected categories of the populace (low income, young professionals and single persons).” Clearly Plastic City is not modern housing with its rickety homes and limited access to utilities. This situation demands immediate attention before our 50th Anniversary. Plastic City should be banished as a gift to the nation on its 50th Anniversary and the people in that shantytown must be moved to safe and affordable low-income housing. The same goes for Pigeon Island on the East Coast of Demerara and Tiger Bay in the capital city.
With the change, it is hoped now there will be more focused action in the housing sector and I wish the new Junior Housing Minister, Ms Valerie Sharpe-Patterson, the best of luck. I am urging the new Junior Minister to set up an advisory team made up of bankers (two of Guyana’s best bankers I am told are in semi-retirement ‒ Conrad and Sandra Plummer), lawyers, accountants, social workers who are actively working with the poor, a woman’s representative from an organization like Red Thread, someone from Habitat for Humanity, someone from Food for the Poor, a resident of a depressed community like Tiger Bay and someone from the Junior Minister’s office. That team should then urgently request technical help from the UN and the Government of Singapore to loan a few experts to help in the process of mapping-out and swiftly implementing a permanent solution that aims to provide housing for all.
Singapore has the record of being one of the better-housed nations in the world with more than 99.9 per cent of that nation’s population having access to permanent housing. Public housing built by the government (Housing Development Board) but paid for by the savings of the people (Home Ownership for the People Scheme – HOPS) provides 82 per cent of these permanent homes while the remaining 17.9 per cent live in private housing development. This process was a critical leg that allowed Singapore to take off economically.
It is hoped that this advisory team will develop an end product which is a cabinet paper with addendums recommending changes to the laws, an implementation plan and a detailed budget funded by many sources (not only the Treasury). There were great expectations in May 2015 that the trials and tribulations of the bottom 20 per cent would have been met by a more responsive and caring approach from the coalition government on this question of housing. Instead, the year 2015 was one of the worst years in Guyana’s history in servicing the poor and the working class when it came to housing. This deterioration happened mainly in the second half of 2015 under the leadership of Junior Minister Keith Scott where a paltry 180 house lots and 290 titles were processed. His predecessor, former Senior Minister of Housing Irfaan Ali had the record of distributing some 3,000 house lots and 2,040 titles in a six-month period in 2014.
I am sure if I had asked the former Junior Minister of Housing what the cost was to build a low-housing community of 100 houses with houses, streets, drains, play area, and basic utilities (water, lights and so on), he would not have had a clue since this clearly appeared to not have been his focus. Until and unless our housing executives have total control over costing in the housing sector, we cannot design the projects; we cannot price each unit; we cannot fund them; we cannot market them, and so on. This is the way to go in order to get the very poor on to the asset ladder. I am encouraged by the opening statements from the new Junior Minister of Housing, Ms Valerie Sharpe-Patterson; she appears like as though she means business and that is necessary to build confidence in the system and move this project forward.
I am therefore calling on the public to flood the letter columns of the papers with their experiences with the Housing Ministry over 2016 since this will serve as a tool to help improve this critical service. They can always ask the press to withhold their name if they fear discrimination, but if they do not speak up, they are setting themselves up to be under-served. If a people do not stand up for their rights, no one will.
Based on the feedback I was given, there are too many people with a sales and marketing mindset in the ministry and too few thinkers (product and execution people). The President has made it clear on the campaign trail he does not want house lots but homes in housing schemes. That means the product has to change. We cannot only sell the change, we have to do the change and that requires passion and youthfulness, thus the excitement around the appointment of the new Junior Minister. The product people in the ministry have to get a front seat and the talk men must be pushed back. We cannot turn around this process with sweet words, only with hard action. Remember the Guyanese people are waking up every day and asking the coalition – “What have you done for me lately?” and when they look at the housing sector, they are gravely disappointed.
If we cannot at least talk clearly to the people on the plan for the housing sector between now and March 2016, let us prepare our minds for some shocks in these local government elections since as President Granger said, “All elections are about local issues”. We cannot get more local than a woman from West Berbice being given the royal runaround to secure her title for a house lot for which she already paid her dues. So I welcome the change in the housing portfolio, but I am truly disappointed that the casualty of this change was the most successful Minister (junior or senior) for 2015 in the coalition government, Ms Simona Broomes.
On the campaign trail, the APNU+AFC presented its political philosophy as representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy that will deliver for the people. Has it happened in the housing sector, the electricity sector, the sugar sector so far? The readers must be the judge.
Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh
