Georgetown: Of the 147 houses designated for regional employees under the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), about 50 are presently occupied by personnel who are out of office, a fraction of which comprises retirees of the Council.
The homes are usually occupied by the Regional Chairman, Regional Executive Officer (REO), Deputy Regional Executive Officer (DREO) and other senior officers.
Regional Chairman Renis Morian made the disclosure at the February statutory meeting of the RDC recently, stating that in some cases, some people have at least three houses under their control. Morian said the issue would form part of the discussion when the Housing and Land Committee meets on February 29.
It was Councillor Charles Sampson who brought the issue to the forefront and made calls for order and regularisation as it relates to the occupation of these RDC houses. He said a closer look at the situation was needed and called for an explanation as to what has been happening, while stating that the situation has been a cause for concern for a long time.
“For years now, since I was a Councillor which is since 2011, we’ve always been talking about the housing situation in the Region, based on the occupation of houses in the Region by various officers…it’s causing a lot of controversy and we need to fix it…Over the past two years the thing seem to have gone out of hand, where the Region spends money every year on certain properties and these properties are not being occupied by the relevant people who should occupy them…We cannot have it going in the haphazard way it is going at present,” Sampson said.
He added that there have been numerous complaints by officers in need of the houses.
Meanwhile, Morian said work has already commenced to have those houses regularised, noting that the REO has sent out letters to such persons. He alleged, however, that some members of the present Council were guilty of encouraging those persons to continue to reside in the houses.
“So we blowing hot and we blowing cold…the people ain’t got no right in the houses: they are retired, some of them build other houses and they hold on to it. They got Councillors right here telling them ‘don’t move’,” he stated.
The Regional Chairman noted that the REO, being the chief financial officer of the RDC, has the authority to remove such people from the houses. Nonetheless, the Regional Chairman said, there are various scenarios that caused some people to remain.
Presently, the Regional Chairman’s house at Richmond Hill remains unoccupied. In like manner, former Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon had also failed to occupy the designated home even after rehabilitation works had been carried out on it.
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