Rasbert Turner, Gleaner Writer

Spanish Town, St. Catherine:

Letters of possession were handed over yesterday to 402 National Housing Trust (NHT) beneficiaries at Chedwin Gardens, St. Catherine.

The housing units were delivered by the NHT in collaboration with the six-year-old Sugar Housing Programme, which was designed between the housing trust, the workers unions, the Sugar Company of Jamaica and the various sugar estates to make the lives of sugar workers better.

During the handover ceremony, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller told the gathering that, to date, more than 1,500 houses have been built and handed over to sugar workers throughout the island.

Meeting deadline

She added that the programme was well in keeping with a March 2008 deadline to complete 3,500 housing units for various sugar employees.

Several members of the political directorate endorsed the gesture shown to the sugar workers. In his greetings, Roger Clarke, Minister of Agriculture and Land, said he knew of the subhuman conditions under which sugar workers lived and that it was good to see things taking a turn for the better.

Each lot was delivered at a cost of $395,000.