Housing Ministry appoints new agency

Before the formalities, Minister of Housing Dr Keith Rowley summed up the occasion as an historic one which was symbolic of the ministry’s road to progress.

He said, "We are convinced that the thing to do is to break ranks and speed up the gears. This HDC that we are inaugurating today has as its role for its first year a target of a minimum of 8,000 units."

Rowley stated that during the 43-year period of the National Housing Authority (NHA), responsible for building 40,000 houses, it meant that under 1,000 houses were built per year, but at this junction the country needs eight to ten times that delivery.

He added that houses will be built with a different rate, a different vision, with the same objective, but on a different scale. "And if we are doing as we are doing now up to the last fiscal year ending September 30, the NHA was responsible for delivering 6,300 housing starts.

"We realise that on that scale, the shortcomings and the dysfunctionalities of the NHA would be a hindrance. Therefore, we are looking at the objective and the potential, and what we needed to realise that potential. We had to put in place a new agency which would have as its mandate to deliver to this country superior management initiatives of a much larger public sector housing scheme," said Rowley.

The HDC would be required to do all that the NHA was doing and more, and eventually, Rowley said, the HDC may use its assets in a such a way that it does not have to depend entirely on the Treasury to raise funding for public sector housing construction, as how the NHA operated. He said it will involve a different approach and make assets work for them.

"I think HDC would be a failure if we do business as usual as we had done in the NHA. The ministry has right now 70,000 applications and until we bring that number down to about 5,000, the people will say that we are not doing enough. That is why we need to ensure that the HDC delivers faster, better, more efficient than the NHA," Rowley said.

He then spoke of some of the ills of the NHA noting, "A lot of things did not go right with the NHA, and one of those things had to do with accountability. We are not going to function like that in the HDC, we are required by the law to have our accounts presented and ready in a certain period of time. We have to get serious in this country and the HDC is attempting to get serious in the housing construction here."

In light of all the changes in the Housing Ministry, an enhanced voluntary separation package has been offered to current employees, 40 percent of which, Rowley said, had already indicated an interest.

He emphasised that technology will be used in a big way by staff who will be trained to use it and do things differently for better results.

Among those receiving instruments of appointment for the new agency, were current chairman Andre Monteil, hydrographer/land surveyor Francis Charles; deputy chairman Noel Garcia; managing director (designate) Geoffrey Herrera; architect Clifton Winchester of the Tobago House of Assembly; lawyer Krishna Kantasingh, and Rajnath Chankar. The only female member of the board, Hazel Rogers Dick, was unable to attend the ceremony.