peter.christopher@guardian.co.tt
With a view to chip into the hundreds of thousands of listed applicants for HDC housing, Housing Minister Edmund Dillon says all efforts will be made to complete stalled housing projects all around the country.
“We’ve held to our promise to engage in new constructions, and restart and complete housing projects along the east-west corridor that were stalled and left unfinished between the period 2010 to 2015,” said Dillon at the Key Distribution Ceremony at the Bon Air North Housing Development yesterday.
A total of 61 keys were handed out to new homeowners during the ceremony.
He said, “We will not for any other reason, for any petty political reason abandon projects that were started and weren’t completed in our time. We believe we must take stock of every single development. We intend to complete every housing development that has been stalled in that period.”
He added: “When we look at the fact that are 176,000 people on the database right now— 176,000 people are there waiting to receive an opportunity to receive what you are about to receive this afternoon. We cannot afford to leave houses empty,” said Dillon.
However, the minister admitted that there were administrative and economic challenges which the HDC would have to overcome to complete these developments.
He, like Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, had done several times before at other key distributions urged the new owners to ensure they made their payments to the HDC so that these projects could be funded.