Commend those who enter PPPs wth govt

This, as only yesterday, Opposition Senator, Gerald Ramdeen, accused an HDC official of bid rigging in the State’s house building programme.

Speaking at a JCC seminar on the construction sector’s contribution to the economy, Dr Rowley said the PPP arrangement was an idea whose time had come, especially in a time of economic hardship where government could no longer afford to fund the housing programme by itself. “The Government’s policy is to continue to expand the housing stock and the government does not have the cash reserves that it had before.

Up to 2009, the ministry of finance was funding up to $2 billion a year in construction.” The Prime Minister, a former housing minister, said that the cost of the programme had “run away” from Government, with the result being a gradual rise in the prices of the units, many of which were now out of the range of the people they were intended for.

Given the importance of the private sectors participation in the arrangement, the Prime Minister said it was sad that the very first award of a contract under the arrangement was “already generating a level of negativity, suspicion, accusations and allegations, which seem to be the order of the day in Trinidad and Tobago.” Dr Rowley expressed hopes that the country could get to the point where it commended those who entered partnerships with the Government and showed that the model could work.

However, the Prime Minister did not entertain questions on the issue, leaving the event without speaking to media.