President promises more investment and expansion in the housing sector

The International Building Expo opened at the National Stadium at Providence on Thursday with Government officials highlighting major expansions and development in the housing and construction sectors.

President Irfaan Ali has credited his Government’s intervention in a number of areas related to the housing sector, for the expansion of the sector, saying home ownership has been made easier for thousands of Guyanese.

Speaking at the opening of the Building Expo last evening, the President said more than G$240 Billion has been allocated to the housing sector in the national budget over the past four years.

He said that investment resulted in the regularizing of housing settlements, the delivery of over 35,000 house lots and the construction close to 2,000 new homes as well community roads and four-lane highways.

“In addition, 128,000 citizens would have benefitted from improved shelter from our house lot allocation since we have assumed office in 2020. Importantly, the total subsidy or wealth transfer to the beneficiary of house lot if approximately $94B during this period,” the President noted.

In addition, the President said the Government also moved to increase the mortgage interest relief from $15m to $30M, benefitting almost 17,000 home owners. He also spoke of the lowering of the mortgage interest rates.

“Look around the world in the last four years and see where mortgage rate for housing is going, see where lending for housing is going and look at what is happening here. It is not increasing, we have increased the interest rates on mortgage for housing by 2.5 while increasing the ceiling for lending while the ceiling is decreasing globally,” The President stated.

He said those interventions saw a 20% increase in housing loans.

“These are the things that sometimes go unnoticed, these are the transformation that take place that sometimes we don’t put the right value to…and this is not only in one region, this is across every single region,” the President noted.

Over 350 new contractors have been involved in the building of Government housing, and the President said further expansion will take place, as the Government looks at other policies for the sector, including the setting of of a special housing programe for single parents.