SHALIZA HASSANALI
The Housing Development Corporation (HDC) is expected to face a major restructuring come 2022.
The announcement came from Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley on Saturday while addressing a political meeting in La Horquetta.
“We about to get Cabinet approval for restructuring of the HDC,” the PM told supporters.
He said the HDC would be restructured in two parts.
One would be a landlord entity “where all the existing HDC properties and promises will fall under management and control by a company and a management and staff that deal with a landlord arrangement with those properties.”
HDC would also be digitised to give an account of every tenant or homeowner in their database.
“It would never happen again where somebody is paying $100 a month rent but you owe the HDC $20,000.”
The second entity would be a construction company comprising engineers, project managers and quantity surveyors assigned to give advice and monitor the construction of homes across the country.
Rowley said HDC is constantly losing its way because “they do not know if they are a landlord or contractor.”
The PM spoke about Government plans to build over 100 houses on leased State lands on the old ice factory in San Fernando which was “beginning to become a squatter’s site.”
This will be a public/private development.
Pointing out that Government builds 2,000 houses annually, Rowley said it would be impossible for HDC to satisfy over 100,000 applicants who have been waiting in line for housing and forming such partnerships would now fast track construction of homes across the country.
“While there have been calls to shelf the ANR Robinson Terminal building in Tobago, Rowley said, he had to conclude “they want the airlines to pull out and for the island not to progress. This is not going to happen we are building the airport terminal in Tobago for the people of T&T.”
He said every island in the Caribbean has a proper airport except Tobago.
