-over 2,200 titles to be issued at Int’ Building Expo
The government has reduced the processing time for land titles from more than six months to within three months.
This was announced by Minister of Housing Colin Croal. He said over 2,200 certificates of title are set for distribution over the next three days of the International Building Expo 2026.
Minister Croal was delivering remarks at the exposition’s opening ceremony on Thursday evening at the Guyana National Stadium in Providence. He credited the turnaround to stronger inter-agency collaboration with the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority to clear a backlog at the land registry.
“Looking back at the last five years, we were able to process over 25,000 titles, and this year alone, for the first six months, we have already processed over 6,500 titles,” the minister further announced.
The backlog, the minister explained, grew as the government’s housing drive expanded, increasing the number of titles generated by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) and placing greater demands on the land registry.
The Ministry of Housing has since engaged the Land Registrar to address the delays.
On the scale of the housing programme, Minister Croal said over 53,000 house lots were allocated between 2020 and 2025, with more than 45 per cent going to low-income earners.
The government, he reaffirmed, has committed through its manifesto to constructing more than 40,000 new homes over five years.
International Building Expo 2026 is being held under the theme “Guyana at 60: Building Strong Foundations for a Sustainable Future.”
“Each year, we see more exhibitors, more innovations, more partnerships, and more regional and international interests in our local economy. This growth mirrors what is happening in Guyana itself,” Minister Croal underscored.
In fact, he said the Expo had grown, with over 25 new booths reserved compared to last year and more international companies taking part, including firms from Costa Rica, Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom and India.
Meanwhile, the Minister within the Ministry of Housing Vanessa Benn highlighted CH&PA’s single window system, now in its second year, which brings the review of building applications onto one portal that applicants and the responsible agencies can access at the same time.
Benn said the ministry will host a two-day seminar from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. covering sustainable urban planning, digital transformation, new building technologies, waste management on construction sites, and climate resilience in construction.
The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) will address drainage and flood risk during construction.
The Expo runs for four days.
Among those attending were the visiting Prime Minister of Jamaica, Dr. the Most Honourable Andrew Holness, and Jamaica’s Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Senator the Honourable Aubyn Hill, and President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, who officially declared the exposition open.