Richard Lord

As the con­tro­ver­sy over which gov­ern­ment was the first to im­ple­ment the no down pay­ment pol­i­cy for suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants for Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion units con­tin­ues, the T&T Guardian has ob­tained a copy of a Cab­i­net Minute dat­ed Oc­to­ber 2, 2006, when the mat­ter was con­sid­ered and ap­proved. Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing at that time.

Cab­i­net Minute #2544: Es­tab­lish­ment of a Fi­nanc­ing Regime to fa­cil­i­tate full ac­cess by the Na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty of af­ford­able Hous­ing un­der Gov­ern­ment's Hous­ing Pro­gramme.It said Cab­i­net agreed:

�2 That per­sons in the tar­get­ed in­come brack­et of $8,000 per month and un­der be af­ford­ed mort­gage loans to a max­i­mum of 100 per cent fi­nanc­ing on prop­er­ties val­ued up to $450,000 based on in­come and a sub­sidised in­ter­est rate

�2 That the T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (TTMF) be the sole ad­min­is­tra­tor of the above men­tioned port­fo­lio un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Min­istry of Hous­ing.

It said that the no down pay­ment mea­sure was to be re­viewed every five years "to as­cer­tain whether, as a re­sult of an im­prove­ment in the fi­nan­cial po­si­tion of the pur­chas­er, the in­ter­est rate may be ad­just­ed up­ward to the re­spec­tive pre­vail­ing Ap­proved Mort­gage Com­pa­ny rate of in­ter­est of 6 per cent per an­num."

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Barataria this week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cab­i­net has "de­cid­ed to make it pos­si­ble for cit­i­zens earn­ing less than $8,000 a month, to buy their first home, with ze­ro down pay­ment and at a two per cent in­ter­est rate for homes up to $450,000."

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he would make a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment on the mat­ter short­ly.There con­tin­ues to be de­bate on the is­sue on so­cial me­dia and across the coun­try.