Addressing the Housing needs in the Pichelin community continues to be on the priority list for parliamentary representative for the Petite Savanne Constituency Hon. Dr.Kenneth Darroux.
The parliamentary representative at the recent inauguration ceremony of the Pichelin Village council, told villagers, that requests for housing assistance during his tenure have been continuous.
Hon. Darroux said while it is impossible to address all the housing needs at once, he is committed to addressing the most critical situations first.
“We have addressed some of the housing issues and housing is something that you can never stop addressing. Ask anyone of the parliamentary representatives, you have a list, you exhaust the list and another list will show up” he explained.
The Parliamentary representative said in recent time Government has spent significant sums in addressing the housing needs of Pichelin residents.
“Just before I came in as the Parliamentary Representative, I know that (EC$100,000.00) one hundred thousand dollars was given to the Pichelin Village Council and that was disbursed to various needy families. Even as I speak, we are currently addressing some of the more acute housing issues here in Pichelin” MP Darroux noted.
As it relates to village expansion, the Parliamentary representative made reference to the recent allocation of six housing lots to needy families in the Pichelin community.
“We can speak to the allocation of six lots which were made to residents of Pichelin at the meagre price of $1.00 per square foot. I know that land for housing is in high demand and I have already spoken to the Minister of Lands and his Permanent Secretary and we are in the process of exploring to see whether or not additional lots can be made available in the same area” he said.
Meantime Prime Minister Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit says the compassion and sensitivity of his Government towards ensuring that residents have adequate shelter is evidenced by a Housing Revolution Programme which continues to take root across the country.
The Prime Minister in justifying reasons for his administrations focus on housing noted that previous Governments did not place housing as a priority.
“Strictly speaking it’s not the responsibility of a Government to build a home for anyone. If I were to speak of my own constituency for example, we were led by the Freedom Party for fifteen years in the Vielle Case Constituency and four and a half years by the United Workers Party and I cannot tell you of one person in that entire constituency which these two Governments helped to improve their house” lamented the Prime Minister.
“It is as a result of the compassion and understanding of this Labor Party Government, knowing that if the Government did not intervene to improve the housing of many citizens in this country they would be living up to today in very deplorable housing conditions” he explained.
The Prime Minister added that his administration has introduced facilities at the Aid Bank and the Government Housing Loans board to facilitate both public officers and private sector citizens in securing mortgages at low interest rates.
“We have also ensured that Public Officers and Private sector employees because of their salary would not have been able to go to a bank or the credit union to get a loan. What this Government did was we placed money at the AID Bank and the Government Housing Loans Board at 5% and 4% respectively. As a result of these policy decisions, we have seen several public officers and private sector employees building their own homes in this country” PM Skerrit concluded.