186 squatting areas regularised – Ali tells One-Stop-Shop

Of 218 squattingareas nationally,186 ofthose have been regularised,Housing andWater Minister IrfaanAli said on Saturday duringa One-Stop-Shop atChateau Margot PrimarySchool, ECD.According to Ali, 32fell in the ‘zero tolerance’areas. ‘Zero tolerance areas’are areas of land thathave been earmarked fordrainage reserves, publichighways and sea defences.The Housing andWater Ministry processed more than 630 land titlesof residents on theRailway Embankmentwhen a One-Stop-Shopexercise was hosted atChateau Margot PrimarySchool, ECD.At that event, Housing and Water MinisterIrfaan Ali said the ministryis working hard toensure that families improvetheir living conditions.He added that theprocess must he done ina civilized way.He disclosed that the ministry has spent $250million on the roads anddrainage in squatting areason the East Coast of Demerara in an effort totransform the lives andimprove the living standardsof citizens.Ali further said thatmore than $15 millionhas been spent on a surveyof 25 areas on theEast Coast of Demerara.Sixteen of those areashave already been completed,while the othersare expected to be completedby the first quarterof 2011.Minister Ali also notedthat it is government’scommitment to regularisethese areas, and he madereference to the history ofsquatting in Guyana.Squatters, he said,have legal access to thehouse lots that they havebeen living on for morethan 40 years.“These people willnow have electricity, water,and all other servicesthat are provided by thegovernment. More importantly,they will havebankable assets.”He explained that,during the process ofthe regularisation, therewere some challengeswith regards to familydisputes as well as neighbourissues; while, in otherinstances, some peoplerefused to get their housesnumbered.One of the personswhose land title wasprocessed, ChandrikaPersaud, said that eventhough he is happy forthe effort made by theHousing Ministry to allowfor residents to gettheir titles, he is hopefulthat the area would bedeveloped quickly.“I live in Success,ECD, and every time therain falls the whole placedoes flood; people doeshave to walk through meyard to get access to theroad, and it costing me,”he said. Anotherresident said that government’scontinuous assistancein making surethat all citizens get theirland titles is commendable.“We have to pay forthe land, but when wefinish paying, we knowthe land belongs to us,”she said.Representatives ofcommercial banks alsointeracted with the futurehome owners. Less than a month ago, the ministry distributed 670house lots to residents inParfait Harmonie when ithosted a One-Stop-Shopexercise at WestminsterPrimary School, WestBank Demerara.Applicants were giventhe opportunity to selecttheir house lots inthe Parfait HarmonieHousing Scheme, alongwith a comprehensivepackage of services thatpave the way for the processingof titles and for construction