Although hundreds of citizens flocked HDC’s Port-of-Spain office last week hoping to be beneficiaries of Government’s 100 homes per week distribution, not every one will be lucky, Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal said on Saturday. Speaking at a key distribution ceremony for the first 100 recipients of keys to new homes at Cashew Gardens, Carlsen Fields, Moonilal said the ministry will use a new random draw policy to give all applicants a fair chance of home ownership. He said even after the general elections, the HDC will continue to distribute 100 homes a week.
“It goes on to a total of 4,562 homes, where we are able to distribute 100 homes for the week, for the rest of the year. I am also cognisant of the fact that we will not be able to distribute to the hundreds of thousands of people who want a home. “We will not be able to do that in one year and so we will continue to build and distribute. I have mandated the HDC to ensure that every single week we distribute a minimum of 100 homes,” he said.
Commenting on the new allocation drive, Opposition senator Camille Robinson-Regis said all houses now being distributed were built by the PNM. “All the houses that Minister Moonilal is about to give away, 100 houses per week, we built every single one of those. Let me remind people that even when they say they are giving out houses, the houses are not free. It is our taxpayers’ money that built those houses and the people who get the houses have the pay for those houses so it’s not a gift, it’s an entitlement,” she said.
Cashew Gardens was started under the PNM , but the project is only partially completed with many units still under construction. Moonilal said the community, like many others started before 2010, was plagued with shoddy work. “We have spent over $150 million in repair works on a lot of the housing estates built before,” the minister said.