Housing Minister praised

THE 31-MONTH RECORD of Minister of Housing and Lands Michael Lashley came in for glowing praise from colleague and Minister of Transport and Works John Boyce on Tuesday.The accolade came in the House of Assembly during debate on a resolution to vest 2.76 hectares of Crown land at Constant in the National Housing Corporation (NHC) for housing development.Boyce said the NHC, under Lashley, would have been able to do even more than what was already being done if there was not the spectre of a $70 million debt to a company for a building at Warrens, St Michael, awarded by the previous administration outside the NHC’s mandate.SuggestionHe suggested that what St Joseph MP Dale Marshall and St Andrew MP George Payne should do, since the Opposition wanted to examine contracts, was to chronicle the events of the Warrens contract and juxtapose that with the contract for the housing project at Constant, St George.He said the Opposition was making a big deal over a finance contract as compared to a construction contract. But what they should tell Barbadians were the details of the contract with 3S, where they signed off to spend $150 million, in addition to contemplating another $149 million of taxpayers’ money, to build a highway.“They said then that a Memorandum of Understanding was sufficient. The Honourable Member of St Joseph is quoted as saying that a Memorandum of Understanding was sufficient to spend $159 million on a highway and is today coming to confuse this honourable chamber,” he said.Boyce said the important thing was for prospective owners to open the doors to their homes at Constant, St George.Boyce called on the Barbadian public not be sidetracked by the Opposition but to keep their focus on the housing programmes that were being undertaken all over Barbados. (WG)