Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) has ap­point­ed three gen­er­al man­agers and boards to three sub­sidiary state en­ter­pris­es cre­at­ed to pro­pel the or­gan­i­sa­tion to be more ef­fi­cient.

In a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment pub­lished yes­ter­day, the HDC said this fol­lowed a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion of Au­gust 25, 2022.

Romel Ra­ma­rack was ap­point­ed gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

New­man George was ap­point­ed chair­man and Kei­th Thomas was ap­point­ed deputy chair­man.

The di­rec­tors are Adande Pig­gott, Win­ston Kurt Sa­landy, Zai­da Ra­j­nauth, Chai­ka Matthew and Jamel Reid.

Ac­cord­ing to the HDC, the com­pa­ny will man­age all el­e­ments of prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing land ac­qui­si­tion, ur­ban plan­ning, project and con­struc­tion man­age­ment and the pro­vi­sion of fi­nanc­ing so­lu­tions to un­der­take con­struc­tion projects.

Je­re­my Camp­bell was ap­point­ed gen­er­al man­ag­er of the T&T Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion As­set Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Joanne De­o­raj was ap­point­ed chair­man and Dante Sel­man-Car­ring­ton was named deputy chair­man.

The di­rec­tors are Jef­fery Reyes, Shereece Smith, Robert Green and Gail La Touche.

The HDC said the com­pa­ny will com­plete the sales of the fin­ished hous­ing units and will con­tin­ue to man­age and pro­vide ad­min­is­tra­tive sup­port for hous­ing de­vel­op­ment un­der its purview un­til hand­ed over to pur­chasers.

Wes­ley George was ap­point­ed gen­er­al man­ag­er of the T&T Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, while Ke­ston Mc­Quilkin was ap­point­ed chair­man and Ke­li Gbekor deputy chair­man.

The di­rec­tors are Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane, Aaliya Ho­sein, Sharon Archie, Su­san Shur­land and An­del An­drew.

The HDC said this com­pa­ny will fo­cus on prop­er­ty man­age­ment, in­clud­ing the main­te­nance of rental hous­ing units, the main­te­nance of the man­age­ment com­pa­ny port­fo­lio and part­ner­ing with re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and oth­er ex­ter­nal en­ti­ties to up­keep com­mu­ni­ties and pro­mote sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

The idea was first float­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in Bud­get 2022 and again in Bud­get 2023.

“The HDC as present­ly or­gan­ised, man­aged, and fi­nanced has built-in in­ef­fi­cien­cies and it can­not con­tin­ue with busi­ness as usu­al. It is dis­tract­ed by hav­ing to deal with the many de­mands for main­te­nance of rental prop­er­ties and the dif­fi­cul­ties in col­lect­ing mon­ey owed by oc­cu­piers of HDC prop­er­ties, as well as the ur­gent need for new hous­ing con­struc­tion,” he had said in Bud­get 2023.

Fo­cus on hous­ing

With the es­tab­lish­ment of HDC’s three state en­ter­pris­es, and the in­com­ing merg­er of the Home Mort­gage Bank (HMB) and the T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance Co Ltd (TTMF), the Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to make hous­ing more ac­ces­si­ble and af­ford­able to cit­i­zens.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that doc­u­ments for the merg­er process— pro­posed over 10 years ago and for­mal­ly ap­proved since 2021—are now be­fore Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

The TTMF fa­cil­i­tates mort­gages by lend­ing mon­ey to po­ten­tial home­own­ers, while the HMB pack­ages mort­gages in­to se­cu­ri­ties that can be sold to in­vestors.

In its 2022 an­nu­al re­port, the TTMF said it achieved a growth in as­sets of 8.46 per cent to $5.15 bil­lion and prof­it be­fore tax of $136.1 mil­lion, up from $127.7 mil­lion in 2021, a 6.6 per cent year-on-year in­crease.

“This strong fi­nan­cial per­for­mance con­tin­ues the mo­men­tum of pri­or years and ef­fec­tive­ly cre­ates a sol­id plat­form from which we can pro­vide sus­tain­able re­turns to our share­hold­ers, the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance/Cor­po­ra­tion Sole.

“It al­so en­ables us to suc­cess­ful­ly de­liv­er on our pri­ma­ry man­date, which is to pro­vide af­ford­able fi­nanc­ing to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“This po­si­tion of strength fu­els our op­ti­mism in the com­ing year ahead of the merg­er of TTMF and Home Mort­gage Bank (HMB).

“Once com­plet­ed, the merged com­pa­ny will lever­age the com­bined strengths of the two com­pa­nies and en­able in­no­va­tion and dy­namism in the next chap­ter of the com­pa­ny’s evo­lu­tion as we con­tin­ue to pro­vide af­ford­able mort­gage fi­nanc­ing and gen­er­ate pur­pose-dri­ven out­comes that ben­e­fit all our stake­hold­ers,” for­mer chair­man Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho had said in the re­port.

Ca­ma­cho al­so said in the 2022 an­nu­al re­port: “Our board of di­rec­tors re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the suc­cess­ful tran­si­tion to the new com­pa­ny, and I thank our teams for every­thing they have done to sup­port what has been one of our most im­por­tant strate­gic ini­tia­tives. Af­ford­able hous­ing is es­sen­tial to the fu­ture of our in­dus­try, our com­mu­ni­ties and ul­ti­mate­ly our coun­try.”

His re­port added: “Through a com­bi­na­tion of pub­lic poli­cies, pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships and fi­nan­cial re­sources, the gov­ern­ment has im­ple­ment­ed a se­quenced and com­ple­men­tary pro­gramme to ex­pand the pool of af­ford­able and qual­i­ty hous­ing for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly the low-in­come and vul­ner­a­ble seg­ments.

“The al­lo­ca­tion of $1.5 bil­lion to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) in the gov­ern­ment’s 2022/2023 na­tion­al bud­get as well as the re-or­gan­i­sa­tion of the HDC in­to three com­pa­nies, which col­lec­tive­ly will de­liv­er on well-de­signed and af­ford­able hous­ing so­lu­tions for qual­i­fy­ing per­sons from the low- and mid­dle-in­come groups, will sup­port the de­liv­ery of hous­ing so­lu­tions for low-in­come earn­ers.

“Fur­ther­more, TTMF and HMB, when merged, will be well-po­si­tioned to pro­vide re­sources for fi­nanc­ing the stock of hous­ing units as well as fa­cil­i­tate bet­ter ac­cess to mort­gages.”