The FNM yesterday challenged the government to produce evidence that taxpayer dollars will now have to be spent on repairs to homes constructed under the Ingraham administration's low cost housing programme. Additionally, former Housing Minister Brensil Rolle is urging the government to complete the work in housing subdivisions that has, up to this point, prevented scores of families from moving into their own homes.
He said the government’s relaxed approach to one of their major campaign promises has not contributed to the overall quality of life for Bahamians who are waiting to move into their own homes. At the centre of the FNM’s criticisms are overgrown bushes and homes that have been vandalised in three subdivisions, including Strachan’s Estates, formerly Mackey Yard, Pride Estates III and the Fire Trail Subdivision. The FNM had projected, during their term in office, that around 37 families would live in the Strachan’s Hill area. Four homes were built near the Pride Estates III Subdivision, which was to eradicate a small shanty town with squatters. Mr Rolle claims that a large percentage of the Strachan’s Hill lots were to be awarded to Bahamians.
That area was formerly the home of an estimated 1500 illegal immigrants before a massive fire in 2010. Mr Rolle said: “The plan of the FNM in both Fire Trail and Strachan’s Subdivisions was both clear and humane. It focused on removing illegal occupants from the land, making land and home ownership available to Bahamians and providing amenities to the area.” Mr Rolle, party Chairman Darron Cash and Dr Duane Sands, former chairman of the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation (BMC) led a tour of the housing divisions that they said need immediate government attention.
Mr Rolle said: “I know of all of the houses that required repair. And the government approved, before we left office $220,000 for repair work to about 30 homes. The money was approved and contractors were approved to do the work and that’s not on the houses that we built, but houses that the former government built. “So for the Minister to suggest that he has now to spend money on houses that we built all that means is that he has to spend the money in Pride Estates III, Strachan’s Hill, Ardastra Estates and/or the subdivision down Carmichael, and that is a down right fabrication.
He also insists that the FNM did not leave much infrastructural work to be completed in any of the subdivisions contrary to what Housing Minister Kenred Dorsett told reporters two weeks ago.” Mr Dorsett at the time said his Ministry is in the process of completing work that would allow the government to expand in existing subdivisions. He added that the efforts to clamp down on contractors to decrease the occurrence of shoddy work was also in the planned process.
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