WHO WOULD GET 600 FREE HDC HOUSES?

The Government is shelling out the sizable sum to build 600 houses in what it is calling a Housing and Village Improvement Programme.

The only explanation of the project has come from Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who said the structures would be “two-bedroom concrete starter houses complete with all facilities, internal plumbing, proper arrangements, and so on.”

The houses would be given without cost to poor people who live in “board houses,” Imbert said.

Each house would cost between $150,000 and $175,000, he stated.

He cited a village in Moruga, where people are living in “impoverished conditions.”

That community is part of the marginal Moruga-Tableland electoral constituency.

The project is leading skeptics to ponder whether the houses would be distributed in a manner to create a vote bank in borderline constituencies.

Apart from the general statement made by Imbert, no criteria have been outlined for the distribution of the houses.

There are thousands of poor people living in dilapidated wooden houses.

The Government has not stated whether applications would be invited or whether the HDC would handpick beneficiaries.

In a country in which “house padding” has become a feature of electioneering, there is keen interest in the locations chosen for the houses and the recipients.

The Government has not given a timeline for the construction and delivery of the houses.

The project comes amid a debt of some $160 million by delinquent homeowners to HDC.

The corporation recently began a fresh round of home evictions.

Residents were removed at Tarodale housing district, where the total rental debt is around $750,000.

It was revealed that some residents had not paid rent since they moved into the respective houses in 2008.

There are bad-pay tenants at several residential communities, HDC has said and has vowed to collect rent or remove occupants.

A major public housing project at D’Abadie, called Trestrail, has been set back by some $100 million because of soil and foundation problems, according to former Housing Minister Dr. Roodal Moonilal.

Moonilal cited an independent technical review that discovered unsuitable soil and poor construction affecting some buildings.

He termed the matter a scandal.

Housing Minister Camille Robinson-Regis played down the issue, saying that the relevant contractor would not be paid until the identified problems were regularised.

In his recent Budget speech, Imbert said that so far for the year 469 houses have been delivered and 1,204 units are under construction.

He said construction would be done at four additional sites.

There are 1,692 unfinished HDC units, he said.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development has been allocated $1.3 billion in the national budget.