Housing sector in a gloomy state for 2016
GUYANA - Like the rice and sugar industries, the housing sector is in a sad state. This is according to Minister with responsibility for Housing, Valerie Patterson
Recently, she sought to address the worrying state of affairs in the housing sector. It was initially brought to the foreground by Finance Minister, Winston Jordan. Jordan told the nation that construction declined from a budgeted 10.5 percent to a projected 3.2 percent in 2016.The Finance Minister also stated that this performance is related to a decline in activity in the housing sector and the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP).
With the aforementioned as her premise, Patterson commented that the approved budget for the year 2016 for Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) totaled $5.8B. The Minister said that the total capital expenditure as at September 30, 2016, is $503.4M, which represents 8.6% of the approved budget, while current expenditure stands at $354.8M and current revenues at $51.5M.
Patterson said that the projected revenue and expenditure for the remainder of the year is $190.0M and $1.124B respectively. She said that CH&PA is not expected to satisfy its capital expenditure budget of $5.2B for 2016.
Patterson said, “I am definitely not happy to report that the Authority has only spent19.9% of that expenditure and achieved 30.5% of revenue. This agency has been plagued by numerous challenges regarding human resources, unfilled positions, lack of capacity in some regards and untimely decision making. However, I am con- fident that this scenario will not continue into 2017 and the budgeted sum will be fully expended”, expressed the Housing Minister.
Also expounding on the state of the housing sector, Minister Jordan stated that the Central Housing and Planning Authority has reviewed the process of allocating house lots, given the approximately 25,000 applications on file, of which almost 18,000 are low income individuals.
He said that concerns about the low occupancy of many housing development areas have also led to reviews of the mechanisms used to enable home ownership.
The Finance Minister said that CH&PA had developed 380 housing areas, inclusive of the regularization of squatting areas for 66,124 lots of which 63,257 were allocated.
(Kaieteurnews.com)