Declaring frustration with the pace of rebuilding and repairs for the homes damaged by cyclones this year, Minister of Housing Dr William Duguid on Tuesday announced Government’s purchase of 150 emergency houses from China.
Speaking in the House of Assembly on a Supplementary Estimate, Dr Duguid said his Ministry required just over $50 million to complete the rebuilds and repairs and to buy the houses from China.
He revealed that a “cursory estimate” of the damages done by two weather systems, a freak storm and Hurricane Elsa on July 2 was in the region of $74 million.
Government received 2 106 damage reports from the Disaster Emergency Management (DEM) and Minister Duguid said 90 per cent of the technical assessments for all reports had been completed.
Assessments were completed in St Peter, St Andrew, St James, St John, St George and Christ Church, while work is still to be completed in St Lucy, St Joseph, St Thomas, St Michael and St Philip. Of the 1,980 houses assessed, 466 houses have to be totally rebuilt.
Minister Duguid maintained that the National Housing Corporation (NHC), the Urban Development Commission (UDC) and the Rural Development Commission (RDC) simply could not handle all of the work in a timely manner.
“With that quantum of houses to be done, 466 houses, we obviously could not get it done in the normal way that we do things; it would be impossible,” Dr Duguid explained. “In fact, the UDC and the RDC advised me that one house normally takes them about 12 to 14 weeks to do and that was totally unacceptable.”
He said a decision was made to equip six workshops where all of the cuts of lumber would be done, then transported as a bundle to the location and put together. But Dr Duguid said only three of those workshops had been erected and were fully functioning thus far.
The Housing Minister said: “Even with the best will in the world, those workshops can essentially produce only 18 to 20 of those houses in a week. It doesn’t mean we can get the houses erected, it means that even with the best will in the world, those workshops can only produce 18 houses a week.
“So, if we were to do 500 of those houses, that is like 25-26 weeks, just in cuts. So all things being equal six, seven months down the road and we still would not have been able to meet the requirements for the response; and that is just the rebuilds, it has nothing to do with the repairs.”
As a result, Minister Duguid said the decision was taken to purchase the houses from China.
He maintained that the houses were of good quality and would be constructed using new technology.
Dr Duguid told lawmakers: “We made the decision that we had to buy some emergency houses and we decided that we would get about 150 houses, which will essentially be pre-fabricated houses which we are importing and using new technology called light gauge steel.
“We will be importing from China with a Barbadian company and getting those to be able to jumpstart and boost the response that we need to be able to respond as quickly as we can and as efficiently and effectively as we can to what happened from the freak storm and Hurricane Elsa.”
The importing firm has not yet been named.
Dr Duguid explained the China-made houses would be constructed of concrete board and light gauge steel which was used in the recent construction of the St Joseph and St Andrew polyclinics.
He also said the houses would come with photovoltaic electricity systems attached.
But Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley raised several concerns about Government’s latest initiative.
While making clear it he was not trying to demean the administration’s effort to help affected householders, he said certain questions needed to be answered.
Bishop Atherley queried whether the repairs and rebuilds would be completed within the six-month timeline Prime Minister Mottley had previously indicated.
“I heard the Minister say this is going to be a long undertaking, but the Prime Minister gave a commitment of six months… and that was July 2,” said the Opposition Leader.
“We are now at August 24 and the Minister does not seem to be thinking at all that this is an exercise to be completed in six months…. I am telling you there are those out there who are expecting swift redress.”
And while he said he was not questioning the quality of the emergency houses as he had not seen them, Bishop Atherley called for clarity regarding Government’s involvement in the project.
“There is a lot being left unsaid around what we do or contemplate doing in Barbados, and Barbadians have now reached a stage where they are so alerted to what is going on that they want to hear in clear terms the specifics with respect to just about everything,” he said.
In response, Dr Duguid said the NHC had issued a tender and received four responses.
He also acknowledged that the repair and rebuild process was “nowhere close to where he wanted it to be”.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
