Richard?Lord

Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says peace has re­turned to sev­er­al crime hotspots across the coun­try be­cause of qual­i­ty hous­es pro­vid­ed by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).Mooni­lal was speak­ing at the pre­sen­ta­tion of keys cer­e­mo­ny for 253 suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants for hous­es at Green­vale Park, La Hor­quet­ta, yes­ter­day.The cer­e­mo­ny marked the cul­mi­na­tion of the pre­sen­ta­tion of keys to 1,000 new home­own­ers across the coun­try for Christ­mas.

He said many of the HDC projects the PP Gov­ern­ment in­her­it­ed from the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion were be­ing con­struct­ed in crime hotspots.Mooni­lal said now there was "peace in La Hor­quet­ta. We have peace in­deed in Laven­tille, in Mor­vant, in Beetham, ar­eas that were syn­ony­mous with crime. We have had months and months of peace­ful ex­is­tence in these com­mu­ni­ties dri­ven by the HDC and our pol­i­cy to build peace for eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty."

He said the Gov­ern­ment had con­struct­ed more than 6,000 units, with an ad­di­tion­al 7,000 ex­pect­ed to be con­struct­ed in the next 12 to 24 months.The min­is­ter said the HDC had worked with the po­lice and the De­fence Force to im­ple­ment strate­gies to make the com­mu­ni­ties safe.He ap­pealed to the new home­own­ers to keep an eye out for any­one or group which might be a se­cu­ri­ty threat to the com­mu­ni­ty.

Mooni­lal said min­is­ters did not need any ma­te­r­i­al gifts from cit­i­zens but he urged con­stituents to re­mem­ber their MP Jairam Seemu­n­gal in prayer.