OPPOSITION LEADER MIA MOTTLEY has questioned the rationale behind a land agreement Government has entered into with an entity called Housing Concepts.Speaking at a Barbados Labour Party meeting at Heroes Square on Sunday night, Mottley said Government had leased five acres of land at Coverley, Christ Church to the company for $100 annually over the next 99 years for development purposes.This initiative would involve the construction of supermarkets, medical clinics, restaurants, automotive accessory outlets and a bank, among other businesses.When the company erected the buildings, it said, it would be renting them to tenants and making money on the land that the state was gifting for $100 annually.Lease agreementMottley, who handed out several copies of the lease agreement to the audience, said under the accord Housing Concepts would have the right to sublet all the buildings “or any part thereof” on terms it would decide.“The same Government of Barbados will pay them a $100 000 a year for a post office; the same Government will pay them $150 000 or $200 000 a year for 99 years each for a community facility; [and] doctors will pay them $150 000 a year . . . .”Mottley suggested that the National Housing Corporation could have called upon Housing Concepts to turn over 50 per cent of all revenue from the buildings constructed on the five acres of land.“. . .Or give us 50 per cent of any buildings that you sell. Because this same lease agreement gives them the power to sell the buildings to somebody else with the permission of the National Housing Corporation. If there was ever free land, it is this.”Mottley said businessmen Bjorn Bjerkhamn and Mark Maloney were among the principals behind the company Housing Concepts. Calling for the immediate resignation of Minister of Housing Michael Lashley, Mottley accused him of misleading Barbadians when he told the House of Assembly last week of an existing finance contract between Clico and the NHC for the Constant, St George housing project.Producing a photocopy of what she said were the minutes of the NHC’s board of directors meeting of June 30, the Opposition Leader added that the evidence was “clear”. (CH)
