GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr David Lee says that for too long, hous­ing de­liv­ery in T&T has fall­en far short of na­tion­al needs, as more than 100,000 ap­pli­cants re­main on the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) data­base, yet on­ly 4,000 homes were built in the past decade. He says it is a gap that could on­ly be de­scribed as a fail­ure of de­liv­ery.

He made the com­ments at an awards ban­quet held by the T&T Con­trac­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA) on Sat­ur­day evening.

Lee gave the as­sur­ance that the Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing de­ci­sive­ly to change that re­al­i­ty, set­ting a tar­get of 20,000 af­ford­able, sus­tain­able homes with­in the next four to five years, backed by a clear work pro­gramme and mod­ern con­struc­tion meth­ods.

He al­so is­sued a strong warn­ing to con­trac­tors and over­sight bod­ies, pledg­ing an end to sub­stan­dard con­struc­tion prac­tices that have plagued state hous­ing projects for years.

“Too many HDC de­vel­op­ments have been plagued by leak­ing roofs, fail­ing re­tain­ing walls, poor drainage, pot­hole-rid­den in­ter­nal roads, and in­fra­struc­ture that de­te­ri­o­rates far too soon. These are not mi­nor de­fects. They are blows to the dig­ni­ty of fam­i­lies and to the pub­lic trust in both the state and the in­dus­try,” the min­is­ter added.

He al­so said there would be mea­sures aimed at im­prov­ing qual­i­ty and trans­paren­cy, in­clud­ing stricter pro­cure­ment process­es, en­hanced over­sight, and tougher build­ing stan­dards. Con­trac­tors with proven in­tegri­ty and per­for­mance records would be pri­ori­tised, and every project will un­der­go rig­or­ous checks be­fore ap­proval.

“We will not qui­et­ly ac­cept poor work­man­ship, in­flat­ed con­tracts, or projects that look com­plete on pa­per but fail in re­al­i­ty,” Lee stressed.

He al­so not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment is tack­ling bu­reau­cra­cy head-on with a new Pri­or­i­ty Por­tal Desk to fast-track ap­provals for projects over $50 mil­lion.

“This means less time lost in line, more pre­dictabil­i­ty in project time­li­ness, and a clear mech­a­nism to re­solv­ing ap­proval bot­tle­necks. In oth­er words, we are mov­ing from bu­reau­cra­cy to fa­cil­i­ta­tion, from the term ‘come back next month’ to ‘let’s get this mov­ing’. Around the world, gov­ern­ments no longer try to build every­thing alone. They part­ner strate­gi­cal­ly, trans­par­ent­ly, and at scale,” Lee added.

He em­pha­sised that af­ter a decade of stalled projects and missed op­por­tu­ni­ties, con­struc­tion is no longer a side chap­ter but “a front line of na­tion­al re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion.”

At the heart of this trans­for­ma­tion is the Na­tion­al Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print, launched by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar two weeks ago, which in­cludes land­mark ini­tia­tives such as the San Fer­nan­do to Ma­yaro High­way, ex­pan­sion of the Port of Port-of-Spain, wa­ter­front de­vel­op­ments in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do, re­de­vel­op­ment of In­vaders Bay, and a 250-acre hous­ing es­tate to re­place Gold­en Grove Prison.

These projects are ex­pect­ed to cre­ate 50,000 jobs across con­struc­tion and re­lat­ed sec­tors.

Lee did not shy away from con­fronting past fail­ures.

With over 100,000 ap­pli­cants on the HDC data­base and on­ly 4,000 homes built in the last decade, he called the sit­u­a­tion “a fail­ure of de­liv­ery.”

The min­is­ter as­sured that the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse is a com­mit­ment to build 20,000 af­ford­able, sus­tain­able homes with­in four to five years, sup­port­ed by mod­ern con­struc­tion meth­ods such as mod­u­lar and pre­fab­ri­cat­ed de­signs.

En­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy, cli­mate re­silience, and com­mu­ni­ty ameni­ties will be cen­tral to these de­vel­op­ments.

Lee al­so cham­pi­oned pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships as a cor­ner­stone of fu­ture de­vel­op­ment, en­abling risk-shar­ing, un­lock­ing pri­vate cap­i­tal, and ac­cel­er­at­ing de­liv­ery.

“When PPPs are prop­er­ly struc­tured and fair­ly man­aged, every­one wins. The state, the con­trac­tor, the fi­nancier, and most im­por­tant­ly, the cit­i­zen. The Min­istry of Hous­ing and the HDC are quite lit­er­al­ly open for PPP busi­ness. We can­not talk about re­silience while sidelin­ing lo­cal tal­ent.

“We can­not boast about de­vel­op­ment while for­eign firms dom­i­nate the ma­jor con­tracts and lo­cal con­trac­tors com­pete for scraps.

“This gov­ern­ment be­lieves the hands that build Trinidad and To­ba­go must be Trinida­di­ans’ and To­bag­o­ni­ans’ hands. This does not mean shut­ting out in­ter­na­tion­al ex­per­tise. It means en­sur­ing gen­uine lo­cal con­tent in ma­jor projects, em­pow­er­ing small and medi­um-sized con­trac­tors with ap­pro­pri­ate­ly sized pack­ages, build­ing part­ner­ships while lo­cal com­pa­nies gain skills, tech­nol­o­gy, and ca­pac­i­ty, not just sub­con­tract crumbs,” Lee said.

Lee an­nounced part­ner­ships with the MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre, UWI Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing, and NGOs such as Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty to train young peo­ple in dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy, green con­struc­tion tech­niques, and cli­mate-re­silient de­sign. Ref­er­enc­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa’s dev­as­ta­tion in Ja­maica, he stressed that re­silience must be em­bed­ded in every project: “We are build­ing not just for han­dover day, but for the next hur­ri­cane sea­son and the next one af­ter that.”