THE EDITOR: Housing Minister Camille Robinson-Regis will not get any prizes for ringing an alarm bell on arrears of HDC homeowners amounting to a sum equivalent to that owed to HDC contractors. Nobody cares.
As is the trademark of PNM ministers, the buck never stops with them - not with Public Utilities, where it is WASA to blame, not with Works and Transport, where it is big trucks. And in the case of crime, it is half of the population, who only the Prime Minister knows.
Instead, now it's the delinquent HDC debtors who have not paid. How many of these people have PNM jerseys as their Sunday best, lady chairman of the Women's League? This has been a tradition in Trinidad and Tobago.
What she is not saying - and it's a well known fact - is that it's the PNM which has always played politics with housing by giving only its supporters HDC homes. So the ministry needs to take recovery action against people on the membership list of the PNM.
It has gone further than a casual observation. If you look at any HDC settlement, like Tarouba, Valsayn East Grove, Oropune, anywhere for that matter, its always people from the PNM's natural constituency. This is not being ethic or racist, but it's a real observation.
How many delinquents are in Beetham, Charford Court, Cocoyea and Embacadere, etc where the PNM dominates and what action does the Government take, running the risk that the first thing the non-payers will say is they made sure to vote for Robinson-Regis and company.
So Robinson-Regis and Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales, who was nearly politically disciplined for going after WASA debtors, are just seeing what it costs to keep them in Government.
The grievance I have is that I had to use all of my retirement money to buy a safe home, workers and ordinary citizens have to borrow to buy land and build, and the Government does nothing but raise prices. But HDC tenants? If the toilet doesn't work like in Hollywood and Canada, the PNM will come running, even though the tenants have not paid their $100 per month rent for 25 years. These tenants are the first pick for government jobs in the public service. So the inequity is there.
If Robinson-Regis was so concerned about bad payers, she should be asking the Minister of Finance to expedite VAT refunds for businesses, to pay minibus drivers who are transporting children and to give people an increase, so that they can pay their living expenses, mortgage included, and not resort to stealing, begging and borrowing.
LINDA CAPILDEO
St James
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