bahamiangoddess
05-22-08, - 11:39 AM
Housing corruption shocker
By TAMARA McKENZIE, Assistant News Editor, tamara@nasguard.com
When the Free National Movement government took office last year, they reportedly discovered that there were three home owners who claimed that their homes were "gifts" from the former housing minister and they did not have to pay a mortgage, rent or any other fees, parliamentarians heard Wednesday.
Such a claim was made by Housing Minister Kenneth Russell in the House of Assembly yesterday. His allegation was only one of several he made about the government's housing program before the FNM government took office last May.
But such a claim was strongly denied yesterday by former Housing Minister Shane Gibson, who challenged Russell to present the names of the three home owners in question. "Does it sound right to present homes as a gift?" Gibson responded when The Guardian asked him about such claims. "I again challenge him to provide me with the names. I also spoke to persons at the Mortgage Corporation and nobody knows anything about this, nor could they present me with any names."
Russell made several claims about the prior state of housing while moving a resolution for the sale of 88,279 acres of land in Spring City, Abaco, to build a number of homes and provide service lots for low income residents of the Abaco community.
Russell further claimed that when the FNM took office, they met 10 homes with a mortgage brought-out from Imperial Life and "deliberately" not placed on the corporation's books for four years.
He said while the former Progressive Liberal Party administration often touted that they built more than 1,300 homes during its five-year term, the FNM government met 86 houses that were incomplete and hundreds of houses where people lived without conveyances and/or mortgages.
"[There were] 40 houses supposedly completed where people could not move in because infrastructure was not completed," Russell said. " We met 400 houses on mortgage with no insurance. It is a good thing that no fire, hurricane, or flooding had occurred in this community, putting the home owner at risk and causing serious additional expenses on the BMC."
Meanwhile, Russell said he also met the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation and the Department of Housing broke, both owing millions to other corporations, contractors and to each other.
According to him, those persons who have claimed that the FNM government did not build one house, simply do not believe that the government is continuous. "I presume that they expected or wanted this minister of housing to ignore these problems, to walk away from incomplete houses, to ignore houses that people could not live in, to not connect the electricity, the water, the telephones, and the sewer systems," Russell said. "They did not want us to complete subdivisions with no infrastructure. They only wanted us to proceed with the construction of new houses. How would it look if we had built new houses while there were hundreds of structures at various stages that were not completed and could not be placed on BMC's books?"
Russell said that with the available funds, the ministry chose to complete unfinished houses, repair defective houses, obtain ownership of land, secure conveyances, and secure mortgages so that the BMC could generate a cash flow toward the creation of new housing subdivisions, and to build new homes.
The housing minister said the government has so far signed and issued 284 conveyances for homes and service lots in New Providence and 134 in Grand Bahama and the Family Islands. In the last several months, he said a total of $12,350,031 in conveyances were placed on the books of the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation, and most of the monies received has gone to pay bills left outstanding by the previous government.
"We could have acted wrongly and short-changed the payments mentioned to build new houses, but with so many houses not in use and others incomplete, we thought that we would make the bad work good first, especially seeing that we had no money," Russell explained.
"The recent $5 million injected into the Ministry of Housing and National Insurance caused us to be able to put over 117 families in homes as we move forward, paying bills like $1,018,683 to Bethel's Trucking, $614,002 to Sybco Co., $ 579,014 to the Water & Sewage Co., $119,000.00 to BTC, $385,478.75 to GBPA, $141,634.09 to GB Millwork, and to other contractors with executed contracts from the former administration."
The government outlined in its manifesto document that it would facilitate the construction of 3,000 affordable homes within its five-year term by providing fully-serviced lots and/or newly constructed houses.
No new homes have been built to date.
By TAMARA McKENZIE, Assistant News Editor, tamara@nasguard.com
When the Free National Movement government took office last year, they reportedly discovered that there were three home owners who claimed that their homes were "gifts" from the former housing minister and they did not have to pay a mortgage, rent or any other fees, parliamentarians heard Wednesday.
Such a claim was made by Housing Minister Kenneth Russell in the House of Assembly yesterday. His allegation was only one of several he made about the government's housing program before the FNM government took office last May.
But such a claim was strongly denied yesterday by former Housing Minister Shane Gibson, who challenged Russell to present the names of the three home owners in question. "Does it sound right to present homes as a gift?" Gibson responded when The Guardian asked him about such claims. "I again challenge him to provide me with the names. I also spoke to persons at the Mortgage Corporation and nobody knows anything about this, nor could they present me with any names."
Russell made several claims about the prior state of housing while moving a resolution for the sale of 88,279 acres of land in Spring City, Abaco, to build a number of homes and provide service lots for low income residents of the Abaco community.
Russell further claimed that when the FNM took office, they met 10 homes with a mortgage brought-out from Imperial Life and "deliberately" not placed on the corporation's books for four years.
He said while the former Progressive Liberal Party administration often touted that they built more than 1,300 homes during its five-year term, the FNM government met 86 houses that were incomplete and hundreds of houses where people lived without conveyances and/or mortgages.
"[There were] 40 houses supposedly completed where people could not move in because infrastructure was not completed," Russell said. " We met 400 houses on mortgage with no insurance. It is a good thing that no fire, hurricane, or flooding had occurred in this community, putting the home owner at risk and causing serious additional expenses on the BMC."
Meanwhile, Russell said he also met the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation and the Department of Housing broke, both owing millions to other corporations, contractors and to each other.
According to him, those persons who have claimed that the FNM government did not build one house, simply do not believe that the government is continuous. "I presume that they expected or wanted this minister of housing to ignore these problems, to walk away from incomplete houses, to ignore houses that people could not live in, to not connect the electricity, the water, the telephones, and the sewer systems," Russell said. "They did not want us to complete subdivisions with no infrastructure. They only wanted us to proceed with the construction of new houses. How would it look if we had built new houses while there were hundreds of structures at various stages that were not completed and could not be placed on BMC's books?"
Russell said that with the available funds, the ministry chose to complete unfinished houses, repair defective houses, obtain ownership of land, secure conveyances, and secure mortgages so that the BMC could generate a cash flow toward the creation of new housing subdivisions, and to build new homes.
The housing minister said the government has so far signed and issued 284 conveyances for homes and service lots in New Providence and 134 in Grand Bahama and the Family Islands. In the last several months, he said a total of $12,350,031 in conveyances were placed on the books of the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation, and most of the monies received has gone to pay bills left outstanding by the previous government.
"We could have acted wrongly and short-changed the payments mentioned to build new houses, but with so many houses not in use and others incomplete, we thought that we would make the bad work good first, especially seeing that we had no money," Russell explained.
"The recent $5 million injected into the Ministry of Housing and National Insurance caused us to be able to put over 117 families in homes as we move forward, paying bills like $1,018,683 to Bethel's Trucking, $614,002 to Sybco Co., $ 579,014 to the Water & Sewage Co., $119,000.00 to BTC, $385,478.75 to GBPA, $141,634.09 to GB Millwork, and to other contractors with executed contracts from the former administration."
The government outlined in its manifesto document that it would facilitate the construction of 3,000 affordable homes within its five-year term by providing fully-serviced lots and/or newly constructed houses.
No new homes have been built to date.