Housing Ministry boosting capacity to ensure quality houses are built, tackle fraud

The Housing Ministry has been strengthening its monitoring capability to ensure quality works are produced, especially on the construction of houses, as well as to clamp down on fraud within the agency.

Housing Minister Collin Croal gave these assurances on Wednesday evening during the consideration of the budget estimates for his Ministry in the Committee of Supplies. At the time, he was asked by Opposition Member Sherod Duncan from the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) about allocations to boost oversight at the Ministry.

“Quality control is important. I’m not naïve to a lot of complaints that we’ve had recently, for example, with the houses. So, we’re cognisant of what is required to ensure that we have the best value,” the Housing Minister noted in response, adding, “But we have strengthened our monitoring.”

According to Croal, the staff complement at his Ministry has significantly gone up, especially in the Project Department, to enhance its monitoring capability.

“We are doing a restructuring on the Project Department. [And the] Housing Unit now will be further strengthened with some additional clerks of works as well as engineering technicians to be able to effectively help with the monitoring on the construction side simultaneously, because while we have infrastructure works on the roads, our increased workload now includes the houses,” he stated.

Moreover, the Housing Minister added that they are also working with the Public Works Ministry to recruit new graduates from the University of Guyana (UG) in order to build capacity.

Additionally, through the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA), there is a weekly meeting convened by the Housing Ministers to review all the projects under the Ministry. This is further bolstered by a new platform introduced by the Government whereby all projects are listed and real-time information is provided, such as whether there are delays.
“So, we have beefed up in terms of review, but this is done weekly now because quality control is important,” Croal posited.

Similarly, Croal said efforts are being strengthened to clamp down on fraud both within the Ministry and externally.

But while he noted that the Ministry staff now have to sign a Code of Conduct and its Enforcement Department has been bolstered to include a former senior Guyana Police Force official at the helm to go after fraudsters, they still face challenges that hinder these efforts.

“There are a lot of times when the witnesses are required to give the necessary statement to take to completion in terms of being able to prosecute someone, and that’s where we’re lacking,” the Minister noted.

He went on to “…encourage persons to please, if you have encountered or you have been approached, feel free to engage our Enforcement Department or directly the Guyana Police Force.”

Despite this, however, Croal said that they have had some recent successes in terms of clamping down on fraud within the CHPA.