Govt. refuses to act against errant housing developers

…as thousands languish for house lots
–    Same situation exists with radio licences

In recent years, housing developments across the nation and gold mining became two of the biggest drivers of the economy.
With a huge demand for house lots and even turn-key homes, the spinoffs have created thousands of jobs for contractors, hardware suppliers, surveyors and financial institutions to the tune of billions of dollars annually.
However, the housing sector has slowed significantly as Government essentially runs out of land.
It is the same with the radio frequencies with dozens of applications not being processed and there are no useful frequencies available.
More than 25,000 housing applications exist on file across the country. In East Demerara, there are no more lands available, housing officials and Government say. A vast number of those 25,000 applications are for the Demerara area.
It appears now that the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), under former Minister of Housing, Irfaan Ali, was not properly managing the lands it had under its control.
Worth billions of dollars, large swaths of lands, especially on the East Bank of Demerara, between Eccles and Diamond, were parceled off to several private developers, including Chinese companies.
It involved several hundreds of acres of prime lands, including for areas behind Republic Park, at Providence, Herstelling, and even in the Golden Grove area. The lands were sold for between $500,000 per acre to up to $9M per acre, with no clear indications what impacted the price difference.

CH&PA CEO, Myrna Pitt

CH&PA’s Deputy CEO, Denise King-Tudor

Minister Valerie Adams-Patterson

The developers were given specific conditions, like time limits, and were tied to construct certain infrastructural works before they were to be handed their transports. Some of the developers were even barred from selling new homes to citizens who already owned property.
However, there are indications that many Guyanese were allowed to purchase a second home or invest in land.
The developers, according to agreements, only paid part of the monies that were demanded by CH&PA, pending the construction of infrastructural works and submissions of designs, among other documents.
Today, it has been more than four years for many of the 20-odd developers. For many of them, very little has been done in terms of infrastructural works. Some of the lands are overgrown with bush.
VARIOUS BREACHES
There are indications that various breaches of the agreements that CH&PA signed occurred. These include non-completion of infrastructural works and even non-submission of designs.
There are reports that some of the developers who have started some work have, in breach of the agreements, sold house lots instead of building homes.
One developer even reportedly sold his entire parcel, some 100 acres of it, to a Chinese investor, for at least US$7M.
Last September, the David Granger-led administration, under pressure to find new lands and attempting to find out what exactly was happening in the housing sector, conducted surprise inspections along the areas between Providence and Little Diamond, EBD.

Way behind! The Sunset Lakes gated community, controlled by Chinese-owned BaiShanLin, is one of several behind schedule.

What Keith Scott, the then Minister within the Ministry of Communities, and a team of senior CH&PA officials found was shocking. Many of the private developers were way behind in construction.
It appeared that CH&PA was not enforcing the conditions that it had developers agree to.
Internal roads, drains and utilities were not in place and many of the contractors were not around.
The Ministry of Communities summoned the developers to a meeting at the CH&PA Brickdam office where it was made clear that they would be given a deadline until February to complete basic infrastructural works.
However, soon after Minister Scott was shifted from the ministry and Minister Valerie Adams-Patterson, was appointed.
There was no meeting with the minister and the private developers in February.
As a matter of fact, her office when contacted last week, explained that the Minister was focused on the launch of a 50th Anniversary deal for applicants.
The deal, which would see 50 percent of monies waived for applicants who paid up, had overwhelmed the ministry and CH&PA.
The minister’s office committed to following up the East Bank land matter.
Indeed, even the agreements that CH&PA signed with the developers appeared hurried, with lawyers saying that many loopholes exist.
Many of the agreements were signed months before ex-President Bharrat Jagdeo ended his tenure in November 2011.
The situation with the East Bank Demerara developments by the private investors would raise harsh questions about why the management of CH&PA did not act in a timely manner to ensure that deadlines were met.
The monitoring of lands for the private developers was supposed to have been done by the Land Administration Division of the CH&PA.
A new Board of Directors for CH&PA is in place, with outgoing city mayor, Hamilton Green, the Chairman.
There have been increasing complaints about the running of CH&PA with citizens complaining of delays and rude staffers. One official from the Ministry of Communities said that situation of the East Bank Demerara lands is tantamount to speculation, with some of the developers appearing to be just acting as fronts for the real owners.
Last week, a key committee of CH&PA’s board, charged with land allocation, recommended that the entity’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Denise King-Tudor, be sent on leave for refusing to submit information that was requested.
The deals with the private developers, many of them who failed in their obligations, would mirror others signed by the previous administration of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic.
These include, among others, the Marriott deal and the contract for the US$150M expansion of the Timehri airport. Recently, the coalition Government also complained that the agreement with made by the previous administration to sell its 20 percent stake in GTT left much to be desired.
The Hong Kong-based buyer, Datang, is reportedly making demands that are not even covered in the agreement.
With regard to the Timehri expansion, just 20 percent of the work is reportedly completed but almost 70 percent of the monies has already been paid to the contractor.