Towards HDC transparency

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said a valuation had revealed that the cheapest housing unit at the Victoria Heights development in Diego Martin was worth $1.6 million, while the top-priced units were valued at $4.5 million. For whom was the HDC catering? The units at Chaconia Crescent cost approximately $1 million but were being sold for $650,000. Rowley said an increasing number of people were “coming after” the subsidy.

“Why should someone earning $8,000-$9,000 a month have to compete for subsidised housing with a person earning $40,000 per month?” he asked.

The accepted policy has been the Government making home ownership accessible and affordable to low and middle-income citizens.

The HDC programme is designed to assist citizens, who may otherwise be unable to afford home ownership, to purchase their first home.

The PM did not state who authorised the HDC to construct these upscale houses. Was the Ministry of Housing asleep or did it authorise this deviation in policy? In expressing his concern, Rowley instructed then housing minister Marlene McDonald to send a note to Cabinet for the most expensive units to be sold on the open market. Government, he said, would retain a few for its use instead of paying rent to private individuals, and the rest would be made available for “rent-to-own” through the national housing programme.

To the best of my knowledge neither the Minister of Housing nor the Prime Minister has brought the public up-to-date on this matter.

To qualify for an HDC home, an applicant must be a resident citizen of TT, 21 years of age or over, neither owner nor part-owner of a house or land, in possession of a Board of Inland Revenue file number. This in my opinion is a loophole by which people who are in arrears of income tax have received HDC subsidised homes. An Income Tax Clearance Certificate must be required.

In addition, nowhere was “low income” and “middle income” defined.

In October 2015, after many “high-income” people had benefitted, an income ceiling of $45,000 monthly was reduced to a realistic $25,000. For many years it has been rumoured that people who did not qualify were recipients of HDC housing. Also, that people not resident in TT were recipients of homes; some families were allocated more than one house; people who already owned a home were allocated a house; people did not occupy the house allocated to them but offered it for rent; some people who were recipients of a house have sold them.

Are these merely rumours? There must be an investigation to determine the truth, and where necessary steps taken to recover taxpayers’ money (the subsidy) which was fraudulently obtained.

All housing that becomes available is allocated in the following way: 75 percent is reserved for public applicants through a random selection system; ten percent is reserved for the protective services (police, army, Prisons and Fire Services), and 15 percent is allocated for special emergency cases, senior citizens and physically challenged people.

What is meant by “random selection process?” The selection process must be transparent with qualifying applicants being placed in a “queue”. The “lottery” system should be abolished. Applicants who have been in the queue for years are displaced by a lottery.

Who were the fortunate recipients of these expensive Government- subsidised houses? In this country with its low score of 38 out of 100 by Transparency International we will never know how many rich people, who already owned mansions were recipients.

There must always be transparency in the allocation of Government subsidised housing.