Jagdeo pledges $15M to Tiger Bay housing fund
Stabroek News
February 23, 2003
President Bharrat Jagdeo has pledged $15M towards a housing fund aimed at helping Tiger Bay residents relocate to new housing schemes.
During a visit to the community at the invitation of the West End Management Organisation (WEMO) yesterday, he also accepted a proposal for defaulting owners to pay $500 a month on their house lots; and would make another 20 available.
However, he stressed that the success of these initiatives would depend on a partnership between the government and the community in getting things done.
Jagdeo also distributed a number of hampers contained in haversacks to the children of the community.
He was accompanied by Minister of Housing and Water Shaik Baksh, City Mayor Hamilton Green and a number of senior government officials. Jagdeo addressed the issue of housing and promised to meet with WEMO executive members after the passage of the budget to address the issue of the $15M fund. His proposals were greeted with loud applause.
But he said that the offers he made had conditions attached - one being that if the $15M is not put into a viable housing fund between March and July, he will withdraw the money.
He also said that the organisation should get businesses involved, especially those that have vested interests in the community.
He noted that based on the lots that have been allocated to the community, at least each owner should be able to benefit with a sum of $100,000 which may be accessible from the fund. He urged that a committee be set up to manage the money.
WEMO Chairman Kelvin Andrews said that since May 1995, the community had been told that the residents would have to relocate because the area had been identified for development.
Some 150 people were allocated house lots but an additional 35 still require spaces, he said.
Initially he said that WEMO had asked for lots in one area but instead these were allocated in five locations. Because of this some of the donor agencies and businesses, such as the Social Impact Amelioration Programme (SIMAP) and Mings Products and Services Limited which had promised to help, had withdrawn their offers.
The idea of asking for one location, Andrews said, was so that people could have pooled their resources together and worked on a self-help or aided self-help basis.
Andrews noted that three members of the community were on a relocation committee and had to attend some 34 meetings since 2001. Because they were taken away from their jobs to attend the meetings, he said that the housing minister had promised to compensate them for the time they spent away from their jobs. The minister, he said “did not live up to his word.”
Andrews also noted that since the house lots had been allocated, about 27 have paid for them in full, about 40 or 50 have paid in part and about 60 have not paid anything. He said that it was not a case where the WEMO was asking that the 60 persons do not pay but that they be allowed to pay $500 a month instead of the $4,000 they were required to pay.
Jagdeo also noted that unemployment and job creation were problems but he could not promise jobs immediately.
However WEMO committee member, Euclid Hackett told the President that during the last elections PPP/Civic Member of Parliament Odinga Lumumba had promised jobs to 35 young men and women whom he had recruited to work as polling agents for the party. The jobs have not materialised, she said.
Jagdeo said he would meet with the executive of WEMO and other members of the community in March following the passage of the budget to discuss the way forward in the management of the $15M fund. He would invite Lumumba at that time and said he would have to deliver on his promises.
Jagdeo has also promised to talk to the administrator of the Food For the Poor to see how much assistance could be given to the community in the construction of their homes and in the relocation project.
He advised the members of WEMO to reconvene talks with business community, including Mazaruni Granite Products Limited, which had earlier promised to assist.
He further advised members of the community, who were advocating the construction of a multi-purpose centre for Tiger Bay to forget the idea as it would not be needed with residents relocating. (Miranda La Rose)
