Government outvotes opposition to secure another $57b from NHT 

After a contentious debate on a bill to amend the National Housing Trust (NHT) Act to transfer $11.4 billion annually to the Consolidated Fund, the Government used its majority in Parliament to pass the proposed statute with 29 votes in favour, while the Opposition dissented with 24 objections. Ten lawmakers were absent.

While Finance and the Public Service Minister Fayval Williams sought to make a case for the extraction of $57 billion from the NHT over the next five years, Opposition Leader Mark Golding charged that the country was suffering from a chronic shortage of affordable housing.

Golding said the NHT must be "purposed and empowered" to meet that critical need.

However, Williams said that without the annual $11.4 billion from the trust, the Government would have had to either reduce expenditure or table a tax package to cover the shortfall.

“The Government's economic programme continues to rely on these transfers from the NHT to fund expenditure outlined in the national budget,” she said, while piloting the bill on Tuesday.

Golding said the Opposition was willing to support a one-year extension of the arrangement if the Government had engaged it on the matter.

“But to bring a bill here and to say that you're going to take another $57 billion out of the National Housing Trust over the next five years is unacceptable to us. We do not agree with it.”

In his contribution to the debate, Matthew Samuda, water and environment minister, argued that the housing market “today or next year” would not be able to absorb the $11.4 billion.

“So again, the leader (Golding) has stated that they will not support it. But what they are saying to the public is that they would have preferred that we either increase tax, increase borrowing or destroy the fiscal affairs of the country by increasing the deficit,” he said.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, who has direct ministerial responsibility for the NHT, said it appeared to him that the opposition leader would put the country at risk for his ego, seeing that the Government did not have consultations with him on the matter.

“But the real challenge now is not a demand-side challenge. It's not a lack of financing challenge. The real challenge is a supply side issue,” the prime minister observed.

He said an estimated 150,000 housing stock was needed to supply the current demand for housing.

Hitting back at comments made by the prime minister about Golding, MP for Westmoreland Eastern Dr Dayton Campbell questioned what Holness was doing in 2013 when he opposed the pulling of money from the NHT.

Holness, who was the opposition leader at the time, railed against the then government’s plans to take money from the NHT for budgetary purposes.

“Wasn’t he putting the country at risk for ego at that time?” Campbell questioned. "That level of hypocrisy, Mr PM, is palpable,” he contended.

He further argued that if there was a supply problem in terms of sufficient housing, it was the NHT that was best placed to address that need.

“The prime minister went on to say, even if we had all the money, we still couldn't build the houses because we don't have the contractors. But a few weeks ago, I was told here that NaRRA (National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority) would fix all of these problems. So, I want to know now, how is it that even with all of the money, we can't rebuild the houses for the people down in Eastern Westmoreland,” he questioned.

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