Floyd Morris | Time to build: after nine years?

On February 23, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness wrote an article in The Sunday Gleaner titled “Time to build.” In this article, he sought to express some of the achievements of his administration where housing is concerned. He also took the opportunity to try to discredit the achievements of the People’s National Party (PNP) in housing.

He made some erroneous claims about Operation PRIDE and how it was managed. Paul Buchanan already responded to these in an article published on November 5, 2022 in another newspaper. I will state some irrefutable facts about Operation PRIDE and the housing achievements of the PNP.

Operation PRIDE has been one of the innovations of the PNP to provide land and housing for our citizens. Thousands of our citizens have been living on marginal lands for generations, brought about because most of fore-fathers and mothers were deprived of this vital asset after emancipation from slavery. This historical fact was fundamentally etched in the mind of the Most Hon P.J. Patterson when he conceptualized and introduced Operation PRIDE.

The PNP administration provided titles to approximately 58,000 families under Operation PRIDE. Upon leaving office in 2016, some 72,000 titles were prepared and ready for distribution to citizens. In the main, the Holness administration has done extraordinarily little to distribute these titles to citizens after nine years in office. Yet, he has now decided that it is time to build.

VEHICLE TO PROVIDE HOUSING

The PNP administration used Operation PRIDE as a vehicle to provide housing to citizens. By providing lands at an affordable price, citizens were able to build their homes at a reasonable cost. The value of these houses has now increased exponentially. In 2003, I purchased a lot in Pines of Karachi for $950,000. I made the purchase with the retroactive salary that I had received in 2003 and some of my National Housing Trust (NHT) benefits.

Subsequently, I accessed the rest of my NHT benefits along with funding from the Bank of Nova Scotia and built my home in that Operation PRIDE housing development. What had cost about $8.5 million to build in 2007, is now valued at over $60 million. This is what the PNP has done to empower the people. The residents of Melrose Mews, Long Mountain, Belle Aire, Norwich Heights, Mount Edgecombe, and Pines of Karachi have been similarly empowered by Operation PRIDE.

Over the past nine years, the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) and the NHT have contributed monumentally to the escalation of the cost of housing. For example, in a development above Pines of Karachi, HAJ has sold lots for about $30 million. Similarly, the NHT has built and sold houses at the problematic Ruthven Towers for $38 million. This approach has contributed to the escalation of housing prices that has resulted in young people and low-income earners not being able to purchase a home.

Prime Minister Holness is making much ado about social housing. In the Throne Speech, it was revealed that 280 social houses have been built. The Holness administration is averaging a paltry 40 social houses per annum when he committed 1000 per annum and there is a demand for about 8,000 social houses. At this rate, Jesus will have returned and taken his people to live in the mansions that he has built in heaven for us before the accumulated demand is satisfied.

HOUSING RECORD

In my estimation, the Holness administration does not have a credible housing record. In 2020, they promised to build 70,000 houses. In 2021, the Prime Minister announced that his administration would be constructing 70,000 houses over the next five years. However, data from the annual reports of the NHT illustrate the failures of the Holness administration. For the five years that Prime Minister committed to build 70,000 houses, the following are the results:

Year Houses Built Directly by NHT Resources

2021 2686

2022 1507

2023 1419

2024 2686

Total 8298

A total of 8,298 houses were built by the Holness administration over four years with NHT resources from 2021, after the grand announcement of building 70,000 houses. Is this a credible record in housing?

Simultaneously, the Prime Minister and his administration continues to misdirect the NHT. Ruthven Towers, for example, is a housing development that has seen one-bedrooms selling for $29 million and two-bedrooms going for $38 million. Never before, in the 49-year history of the NHT, has this misguided approach been adopted. And what is worse, they have failed to deliver the promised amenities such as a swimming pool, multi-purpose court, and gym to the residents of this development for which they are paying. There are leaking roofs, poor installation of fixtures and fittings, and whenever it rains the place is flooded.

The Prime Minister must be reminded that it was under his watch that the NHT entered into an agreement with Dexim Holdings Ltd to build houses in St. Ann. The NHT had advanced the company a large block of funds ($650 million) to construct and deliver some of the houses for low-income earners. These units should have cost about $12.5 million but ended up at over $20 million, and the NHT never got one unit. The matter had to go to court and the NHT ended up signing a settlement agreement with Dexim Holdings that contained a confidentiality clause, despite the matter involving public money. What did the Prime Minister know and do about this hidden agreement? Jamaicans always say, “if you live in a glass house, don’t throw stones.”

I need to remind the Most Hon Dr Andrew Holness that he was not building in Clifton in 2022. It was bulldozing that was taking place, after his Ministry directed that the houses of poor people be demolished. It had to take the intervention of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Mark Golding and the PNP to stop this oppressive act.

The new PNP under the leadership of Mark Golding has delineated some of the things that we intend to do to provide affordable housing to our citizens. We have stated that we are going to repurpose the NHT so that it focuses on its core mandate to provide affordable housing to contributors. We will stop the annual extraction of $11.4 billion from the NHT to finance the Budget, and make these funds available to the NHT to provide houses and mortgages to contributors. We have signalled our intentions to introduce the Programme for the Orderly Renewal and Transformation of Infrastructure in all Areas to drive land and housing transformation in informal settlements across the island. Monumentally, we are going to be embarking on legislative reforms that will lead to more people owning land and houses in Jamaica.

The PNP has a proud record in housing. From what the Rt. Excellent Norman Manley did in the 1950s, to the Most Hon Michael Manley in the 1970s, to the Most Hon P.J. Patterson in the 1990s and the Most Hon Portia Simpson Miller in the 2000s, the PNP has established itself as a credible political organization with its housing policies. This is why we have the NHT and the HAJ (originally called the National Housing Development Corporation). These entities have been at the forefront of modernizing Jamaica’s housing stock. Mark Golding will continue this transformational housing trajectory to meet the demand for affordable houses We have the plan and are ready to implement it after the next election.

Professor Floyd Morris is the opposition spokesman on housing and sustainable living. Send feedback to morrisfloyd@gmail.com