Oropouche West Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Roodal Mooni­lal says $99 mil­lion will be need­ed to re­fur­bish hous­ing de­vel­op­ments. He was speak­ing dur­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions at his con­stituen­cy of­fice in Debe, yes­ter­day. Mooni­lal said: "There are on go­ing re­pairs but $99 mil­lion will be need­ed for the com­plete re­fur­bish­ment of hous­ing de­vel­op­ments through­out the coun­try.

"Right now there are units that can­not be oc­cu­pied be­cause of their con­di­tion and it is ridicu­lous to have hous­es that peo­ple can­not oc­cu­py." He al­so com­ment­ed on the mon­ey owed by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment to the PTSC for the rental of bus­es dur­ing the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. He added: "The PNM has to pay what they owe. It's com­plete­ly un­fair for it to be left alone. We hired max­is and we made sure that our fees were paid in full.

"The new leader of the PNM is still smart­ing from the re­cent elec­toral de­feat but he will be smart­ing even more when he has to deal with this bill." HDC chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Jear­lean John, who was al­so present, said: "We are ready at the HDC once Cab­i­net ap­proves the amount need­ed to do re­pair work we can pro­ceed."