Story and photos by Shaquawn Gill
On Friday the government through the Ministry of Housing and Water distributed a number of house lots to persons in Region five, some of whome have been waiting years for houselot allocations.
The distribution was done at the Regional Housing Office at Fort Wellington, West Coast Berbice by Minister within the Ministry Susan Rodrigues who after that, moved onto the community of Big Biaboo.
37 house-lots were distributed at Fort Wellington to residents of Balthyock Village, West Coast Berbice.
A single mother of 4, Hemawattie Ramlall told BIG Smith News Watch she has been waiting for a house lot for almost a decade. This, she says, is the main thing she wanted to accomplish before she died.
“Meh happy happy, meh does tell me children meh hope meh geh me house lot before meh dead,” Ramlall told this publication.
Minister Rodrigues explained that the allocation aspect is normally an easy task but the work usually put into ensuring that allocations are done is never easy.
“We went through a painstaking process of going on the ground, of officers [getting] wet day after day to verify the information that we have so that the [residents] can…receive these lots,” Rodrigues said.
After the Fortwellington Engagement, the minister and her team travelled to Big Baiboo where she both distributed some government sponsored dry good hamper and the commissioning of a water system.
The hampers, which included donations of a wide variety of food supplies, were donated to the many of the residents whose means of income was tragically affected by the heavy floods earlier this year.
In her brief address to the little community gathering, the minister assured the residents that the ministry is working assiduously to continue to look at the housing needs of the community, and to make every effort to rectify them in short order.
“In a very short time, we will make another 300 house lots available…we will be able to satisfy the housing need of Region 5 within our first term in office, I am convinced [of that],” Rodrigues highlighted.
The final stop of the day saw the first-term minister traversing deeper into the almost secluded community of Big Biaboo, Mahaica. In this visit, Minister Rodrigues commissioned the new water system in the village.
This system saw the Guyana Water Incorporated having to lay around 1500 lengths of water pipes in order to reach every house in the area.
Due to the extensive farming that is done in the community, the houses in the area are dispersed.
This is what caused the enormous amount of pipe lengths to be used.
Whilst there, Minister Rodrigues lauded the work of GWI for having the water connection done in such a timely manner.
A team of GWI officials were also present to continue the registration process of the residents of the Big Biaboo community since the access to water is a first time for the community.