Sutherland meets with contractors in building relief effort

Contractors in Government’s building relief effort have been told that 10,000 quality houses need to be constructed as authorities ramp up production while at the same time taking a second look at in-house procedures to aid contractors.

Minister of Housing, Lands, and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland indicated this at a meeting with the National Housing Corporation’s (NHC) independent contractors on Thursday evening at the Wildey Gymnasium.

He praised the contractors for partnering with the Government to “address what we call a major problem in this country as it relates to housing”.

Sutherland noted that in addition to facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Barbados had to deal with a freak storm and Hurricane Elsa last year, and the Government had a social responsibility to ensure the housing solutions provided for displaced residents met building standards.

“We don’t want to go and put people back into a home that if a Category one or two [hurricane] strikes, then they will have challenges again. We said we want to repair their homes to a level of respectability, and that is why we engage all of you here, local contractors and local builders,” he said.

“We have 10,000 houses to build….  We need at least 2,000 homes per year….  We can do it.

“We are now creating a housing master plan, and with that housing master plan, we will know where we will be building from St Lucy to St Philip. So, I just want you to know that there is a lot of work to be done, but we have to get this Hurricane Elsa/freak storm project behind us. Let’s focus on the big picture of building 10,000 houses,” Sutherland stressed.

He also outlined some of the Ministry’s concerns, among them, the rate at which the houses were being built, the “herculean task” of supplying 10,000 housing solutions, and the processing of invoices for the contractors.

Many of the contractors also spoke about two main issues – receiving payment for work completed and inflation, which had resulted in high building costs. They noted that late payments made it difficult for them to operate.

Financial Controller at the National Housing Corporation (NHC), Pamela Brome, addressing the issue of the NHC’s tardiness in making payments, outlined that many of the accounts provided by contractors were dormant or the banking information and email addresses were incorrect. As it pertains to the issuing of cheques, Brome said many contractors did not have a Tax Administration Management Information System (TAMIS) number.
(BGIS)