Your Eyewitness was quite taken aback when one commentator criticized the govt’s initiative to build 300 houses in Jamaica – after visiting PM Holness expressed admiration for their housing program. The gist of the gripe was that why should we help Jamaica with housing when we have so many poor folks without houses right here in Guyana!! And furthermore, that they’d visited Jamaica and they saw quite a few houses much posher than ours here in Guyana – so why do they need houses from us!!
Now to start from the last jibe, can you believe such schuptideness? Guyana also has posh houses – as to whether they’re posher than Jamaica’s ain’t the point – so the critic implies the Jamaicans don’t need help in that quarter!! But by that (twisted) logic, doesn’t this mean that our poor don’t need no help with houses?? And that should be the question, shouldn’t it??
Weren’t over 50,000 houselots distributed between Aug 2020 and 2025? And already several thousands more this year? But the government didn’t just stop at houselots when the poor is concerned. In every development announced there are provisions for low-income houses – where ownership is facilitated for those who qualifies. For instance, there’s the ceilings on low-income mortgage rates at commercial banks and the New Building Society were lowered – while the principal was increased to $30 million!! Additionally, VAT was removed on locally produced building materials – plus a steel and cement subsidy introduced for first-time home buyers!!
Your Eyewitness believes that maybe the govt critics want FREE HOUSES be built and handed out to the poor!! But hasn’t this been tried since the sixties in the US where those massive “Housing Projects” were created in all the major cities. And didn’t we see them deteriorate into urban jungles where crime was rampant – especially fueled by drugs – and life was nasty, short and brutish??
The point of the matter that must be emphasized is that home ownership as a way out of poverty depends on the homeowner appreciating the VALUE of the house!! And this will only be fostered when the homeowner has some stake in the house. Take for instance some of the so-called “poor” who’re actually refusing to work in the burgeoning construction industry and allowing that sector to be dominated by Venezuelan refugees. Should the government just hand out houses to them – like the ones that’s gonna be built in Jamaica?
And that brings us to the point of that initiative. Hasn’t your Eyewitness already emphasized the importance of wooing Jamaica as an ally in the evolving hemispheric power moves that involves the Yanks??
And at a more mundane – but economically pragmatic level – aren’t we creating a demand for our local hardwoods in Jamaica??

…on policing?
Your Eyewitness is a sucker for police shows. And with Netflix streaming them from across the globe – even Thailand –your Eyewitness invariably wonders how come THEIR police stations are so modernistic – while ours continue to look like something out of Rudyard Kipling!! So he was pretty chuffed when he saw the latest pic of the TWELYE-STOREY edifice that’s replacing our the burnt-out (ancient) Brickdam Police Station!!
So welcome to the 21st century, GPF!! But we hope this is only the beginning of root and branch reform in the institution standing between we the citizens of Mudland and the criminals who’d have us revert to the law of the jungle! But the building can only be the beginning of modernization. Since our GPF was launched in 1839 – to protect the Whites from the newly freed Africans! – the world of policing’s come a long way.
We gotta professionalize the ENTIRE force – and then pay them so they don’t hafta bilk citizens for fry-rice money!!

…free movement?
How long have we been promised ‘free movement of Caricom citizens”?? And it ain’t only a matter of treaties. Seems like the ferry service that was supposed to ply between Guyana, T&T and Barbados has sunk without a trace!!

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