Government's announcement on the eve of local government elections of plans to sell vacant/vandalised Housing Development Corporation (HDC) units to prospective homeowners is a naked political ploy that can lead to massive corruption and enormous loss to the State.
This was the charge of former housing minister Dr Roodal Moonilal, in response to Housing Minister Randall Mitchell's announcement that vandalised HDC houses may be sold to citizens.
"It's a completely mad cap plan. It has an inbred capacity for corruption. Friends and family will be able to buy houses cheaply," he said.
"It's a populist political ploy on the eve of the local government elections, as they also promised to give out 1,000 houses before Christmas."
Moonilal said the idea was thrown to him when he served as housing minister in the last administration and he rejected it. Such a plan opens the way for HDC houses to be declared vandalised and sold to friends, family and party supporters at devalued prices, he said.
He felt the announcement, coming one week before local government elections on November 28, is a political ploy.
Mitchell had said: "It might mean that potential home owners may have to accept the units in a less than perfect condition and the HDC coming to treat with the issues later on, or the home owner accepting the unit in an as is, where is condition because we have a lot of vacant/vandalised units just sitting there for years with little money to repair them."
The minister made the statements at a key distribution ceremony in San Fernando. He indicated this was in order to give people a chance to occupy new houses in time for Christmas and to stimulate the economy with resulting job opportunities for "handymen, masons, plumbers, electricians etc".
"And it is for this reason that you will see a number of businesses, large and small, here offering you brochures showing what goods and services they have to offer."
Moonilal said housing units have to be given to clients in good condition as the basis to sign on for a mortgage.
He asked:"Who will place the value on vandalised units? Are they to be auctioned as derelict properties?" Moonilal said there will be a discrepancy between the value of these vandalised units and the regular one next door which, in reality, will both carry the same cost.
"It will lead to massive cost to the State and to massive corruption in the valuing of properties said to be vandalised."
Moonilal said it was also lead chaos at the T&T Mortgage Finance Company (TTMF).
"For instance, if a particular unit is valued at $750,000, the TTMF will work out a particular mortgage arrangement. If the unit is vandalised, will there be another arrangement to pay at a different value? Will a unit with poor electrical fittings be $100,000 less?"
Moonilal said the HDC should fix vandalised units and then sell them quickly. "Move people into the homes and they become their own security guards."
Asked yesterday for more clarity on thishe statements, Mitchell said: "I said in order to get recipients into homes quickly the HDC may have to consider allowing the recipient to occupy a unit with minor defects with the promise to come and repair those defects later, minor defects such as a small leak, paint job, missing roof tiles etc.
"Or, the HDC may consider selling the units with similar minor defects in 'an as is where is' condition with the acceptance and the agreement of the recipient."
The minister said at present the HDC allocates and distributes units only where there are no issues of disrepair or defect and gives the recipient a three-month period to report any defects subsequent to occupation.
He said over the last five the HDC was only concerned with the construction of units at considerably high cost, leaving close to 1,000 units already constructed, to be vandalised or tofall into various stages of disrepair.
"These units form part of the HDC's stock and we need to get them habitable and we need to get families into them or else they will remain unoccupied, squatters will occupy them or they will continue to become dilapidated.
"The HDC, like all other State agencies, has challenges for funding so we therefore have to come up with innovative solutions to all of our problems. Those potential solutions I've identifiedare under consideration. Nothing has been decided."
Moonilal said the construction and refurbishment of HDC houses stopped over the last 16 months when the PNM came into power.
OWNER OF VANDALISED HOME SPEAKS OUT
After waiting more than ten years for a HDC house a government employee (name withheld) got an apartment in Oropoune in February. The single woman said she paid a contractor to reinforce the windows and install burglarproofing.
One month lare, when she went to move into the house, she found it vandalised. There were gaping holes in the wall where the burglarproofing was pried out. All the electrical and plumbing fittings were gone.
She did not want a vandalised house and asked the HDC for another apartment in a safer area but was told she had to wait indefinitely. Six months later she got a unit in an Arima development and said so far she is safe.
However, prospects of getting a vandalised house sound promising to Christopher Smart, of Maloney, who has been waiting for close to 20 years for an HDC house. He told the Guardian he will accept a vandalised unit without hesitation.
Smart, who lives with relatives and is gainfully employed, said: "It might not be the best but, at the end of the day I would have one foot in the door of a house I can call my own. The rain would be falling and I would not be getting wet.
"As for those criminals? I will just bring their own retribution on their heads."