WESTERN BUREAU:
MINISTER OF Water and Housing, Donald Buchanan, has announced a major overhaul of the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC) to improve the agency's ability to deliver quality housing at low prices to Operation PRIDE beneficiaries.
The Minister said that as of October 1, detailed elements of the exercise would begin, with the total programme being completed by February 2004.
He was speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony for the $4 million Hague/Cave Island Operation PRIDE project in Hague, Trelawny last Friday.
He said that while the positions of the managerial staff are being reviewed and are now up for grabs, he could not say definitively, if workers from his organisation would be joining the unemployment line.
"I have not checked on the business of whether there is going to be any additional jobs or whether there is going to be any decrease in jobs. That is not my concern right now," Mr. Buchanan said in response to questions posed by The Gleaner.
RESTRUCTURING OPERATIONS
"The restructuring process is well under way; in fact, you would have seen that the NHDC has advertised the positions in their top management and all persons who have an interest have had to apply, whether you are inside the organisation or outside the organisation," the Minister stated.
Among the components of the NHDC that are being reorganised are its project management capabilities, the managerial structure, engineering capacity, legal capacity, and its capacity to collect from housing beneficiaries.
Said the Minister: "My concern is to have the most cost-effective and the most efficient organisation delivering housing to the people of Jamaica ...and I am on the verge of achieving that."
The Ministry has started infrastructural works on the lots in the Hague/Cave Island scheme. Eighty-seven of the 220 beneficiaries received their certificates of possession at the handing over and ground-breaking ceremony. To date, the beneficiaries have contributed over $8.5 million towards the acquisition of the lots.
