By Erica James-King, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
HOUSING MINISTER Donald Buchanan has taken a swipe at critics of the restructuring and modernisation programme now under way at the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC), and has expressed confidence that the outcome of the revamping project, will silence detractors.
"We are ensuring that just like any other development that takes place in Jamaica whether it is a joint venture, whether it's a private sector, whether it is a NHT, whatever kind of development your development must have the same integrity like any other one, so that nobody can come back and come feisty with you after you have taken possession of your land and build your house. And I am not going to resign from doing that. That is the mandate I have from Prime Minister Patterson."
That sounding-off by the Housing Ministry's top official, in defence of the NHDC's revamping exercise, came during his keynote address to participants in the ground breaking and handing-over ceremony at Hague Cave Island in Trelawny, on Friday afternoon.
The Housing Ministry envisages that the restructuring and modernisation programme at the NHDC will save the company as much as $120 million annually, beginning with the 2004/2005 financial year.
"It is my hope and pledge that come October 1st 2003, the NHDC will begin to provide you with a level of first class support, that can meet the test of our new century," said the Housing Minister.
He maintains that under the new face of the NHDC, "proper construction management, proper record keeping, better customer service and full respect" to PRIDE beneficiaries will guide the work of the company. The NHDC has a mandate of providing affordable housing solutions to poor Jamaicans.
Last year, the NHDC's Operation PRIDE Project was rocked by heavy criticisms amid allegations of mismanagement, corruption and impropriety over spending on infrastructural work on several PRIDE sites.
Meanwhile, the Housing Ministry is ploughing $63 million into the development of infrastructure for a new Operation PRIDE Project in Hague Cave Island, on the eastern outskirts of Falmouth, Trelawny.
The first phase of the infrastructure development programme which is slated to run until the end of November, will benefit from an injection of $4 million. Accessibility routes to the site which is on a hillside overlooking the Trelawny coastline, are to be constructed during the first phase of the programme.
"It's really the roads and the clearing of the land that is going to be done in this (first) phase, in not more than three months," said Mr. Buchanan. "Then we move now to the next phase which we begin now to put in your infrastructure, your asphalting, your electricity and those other elements of the development."
He envisages that the infrastructure work plus housing construction should be completed within a year.
The St. Mary-based company, W and G Trucking and Construction Ltd. is spearheading the infrastructural work.
Meanwhile, the cost of lots in the scheme are estimated at $262,000, and already the beneficiaries have contributed in excess of $8.5Million towards the acquisition of the lots .
Certificates of possession for the lots were handed over to 87 beneficiaries during a function at the site on Friday afternoon. The land allotted for that PRIDE Project is to be sub-divided into 220 lots.
A mix of former squatters and non-squatters who have never owned their own homes, have bought lots in that Pride project. The new housing solution in Trelawny marks a home coming for former squatters in the Falmouth Cemetery, the 'Dump-land area', grounds surrounding the sewage plant, and those who once lived in the Racecourse informal settlement.
