Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
Buchanan
WATER AND Housing Minister,Donald Buchanan, is to ask the Cabinet to divest government-owned housing units in south St. Andrew, west St. Andrew and west Kingston to the current tenants.
Mr. Buchanan revealed the proposal to the Standing Finance Committee meeting of Parliament in Gordon House last week Thursday. He was responding to queries from Opposition Member of Parliament, Andrew Holness, on the housing fund.
Mr. Holness had implied that the funds should come under the scrutiny of the Ministry of Finance and Planning.
But Mr. Buchanan pointed out that no inflow was coming into the fund as the ministry had not been collecting any money from persons to whom government units were rented in those housing schemes.
"The reality of the situation is that there is a net outflow because utility bills, for example, accrue to the Ministry of Housing in respect of these schemes and we try and meet the obligations to the utilities but no money is coming in," he said.
As a result, he said, he has started a process of divestment of a number of units in these schemes such as south St. Andrew, south-west St. Andrew and west Kingston.
Mr. Buchanan said that he would be submitting to Cabinet a similar arrangement as was used to divest units in Tivoli Gardens, Arnett Gardens and Tavares Gardens.
He warned that after this is done, "Everybody would have to pay what was agreed on," he said. "Nobody is going to use donmanship, gunmanship, extortion methods or any such process. I don't care where they are, which 'P' they are, they will have to come to the table and make some payment."
He said that in the past when this type of arrangement is made there is usually a good response from residents and they usually take better care of the units.
Meanwhile, he said that the housing funds currently stood at more than $200 million with total commitment at $98.56 million.
