Upgrades essential before NHC home transfers

Efforts to transfer ownership of National Housing Corporation (NHC) terrace units to long-term tenants are progressing steadily, with the government prioritising repairs and electrical upgrades to ensure compliance with modern building standards, Minister of Housing Dwight Sutherland said on Tuesday.

But the minister told lawmakers that challenges such as unit encroachments continue to complicate the process.

Sutherland insisted the government was committed to repairing and updating units in order to meet modern building standards before they are officially conveyed to tenants.

“We don’t want to convey units that are not of a good standard. So that is why we are deliberately working on the wells programme, we are deliberately working on the electrical upgrade programme, at a cost of $21.6 million,” he said.

He further explained that a number of electrical upgrades are currently being carried out.

“We are seeking to upgrade to the government electrical engineering standard where the supply and the distribution upgrade will see a single-phase three-wire, 230-volt system, to accommodate those televisions, flatscreen TVs and those dishwashers. We have started that work, and we have conveyed, to date, 590 [units]. We have some 2 000 of those units to convert over to Barbados Light and Power,” he explained.

The housing minister added: “We are hoping between the next two years, we would be able to indeed transfer, if not all of these units, most of these units to the tenants. It’s a long process; it’s not an easy process, but the work has started. To date, 2 323 units have been upgraded by contractors at a cost of $19.1m, which is 83 per cent of the original budget. Another 165 units are at varying stages of completion.”

NHC Chief Technical Officer Henrietta Bourne-Forde also addressed concerns regarding encroachments that have complicated the transfer process.

“The encroachments vary from wall structures that have been erected, fences—a number of different things,” she said. “We are not in any way trying to disadvantage persons who have had these encroachments; we understand the social factors that have affected the creation of them in the first instance.”

(SB)