Jamaican Prime Minister, Dr Andrew Holness, while heaping praise on the Government of Guyana for the strides made in the housing sector, believes there is much to learn from Guyana. He said Jamaica stands ready to collaborate with Guyana, particularly in the area of housing.
“I believe that there are opportunities for Jamaica and Guyana to collaborate in the housing development sphere, particularly as it relates to labour and the deployment of new technology in construction,” Prime Minister Holness said.
The Jamaica Prime Minister offered the comments while delivering an address at the opening ceremony of the International Building Expo at the Providence Stadium in Guyana.
He said he will advance discussions with President Irfaan Ali on how the two countries could work together to improve access to housing.
It was explained that while Jamaica is also experiencing a housing boom, the country has a housing deficit of 150,000.
“We estimate in Jamaica that there is a housing deficit of approximately 150,000 housing solutions. The Government of Jamaica has undertaken to directly provide, through the various agencies of government approximately 70,000 of those solutions. Our National Housing Trust will build 42,000 of those solutions, and we already have the plan to build that number of housing, and we have already built 10,000 of that number, and we continue to build thousands of houses every year,” the Jamaican Prime Minister explained.
Noting that there are constraints, Prime Minister Holness explained the greatest constraint is the availability of contractors who can build at a large scale. Additionally, the sister CARICOM country is facing a shortage of addition to skilled labour.
Prime Minister Holness said the development unfolding in Guyana is “fantastic”, and he is pleased that the Government is not simply allocating lands or building houses, but is also developing communities.
“Guyana has demonstrated what can be achieved when land, infrastructure, finance, and as I have seen displayed here, political will, is brought together. Your housing programme involves not just houses but service land, roads, drainage, water, electricity, but above all, from what I have seen and what I have heard, you are investing in building communities,” the Jamaican Prime Minister said.
According to the Jamaican leader, there is a lot that the rest of the region could learn from the integrated approach to housing in Guyana.
“That integrated approach offers an important lesson for our region. We cannot plan housing separately from transportation, from sanitation, from schools, health facilities, digital connectivity, areas of employment but more importantly from how people live together as a community. And from what I have seen and all that I have heard, it is clear that your president and his ministers are visionary in this regard,” Prime Minister Holness said.
Prime Minister Holness, who wrapped up a two-day visit to Guyana today said he is also pleased to see that in addition to new roads being built in Guyana, infrastructure, such as drainage, utility lines, and digital assets to manage traffic have also been developed.
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