BASSETERRE, St. Kitts-MINISTER of Agriculture, Housing, Fisheries and Cooperatives, Hon. Cedric Liburd, stated in a press conference this morning (Mar. 18) that his ministry has secured the financing and infrastructure for the expansion and construction of 800 homes in the near future.
The minister stated that the tens of millions of dollars in funding for these projects had already been secured from the Republic of China on Taiwan, the St. Kitts-Nevis Social Security Board and various private sector firms.
He added that the building of homes would continue with rapid pace as construction companies and workers were awarded jobs in St. Kitts.
“If you check the Eastern Caribbean reports you would recognise that construction over the years has been making significant contributions to our economy. That is why I am able to say to you that we have already put in motion the builders throughout St. Kitts…and it is difficult now to find builders.”
Senior Assistant Secretary to the Minister of Housing, Charles Williams, said that they would likely be tapping the recently established YES Programme for trainees to funnel into the construction industry.
Liburd recalled that the Labour Party Government had “recognised that there was poor housing throughout St. Kitts and Nevis” and it has subsequently been able to “slash poor quality housing in St. Kitts by a whopping 23 percent in the past 8 years”.
Adding to the complications of increasing housing, Liburd noted numerous natural disasters that affected St. Kitts-Nevis in the early years of the current Labour Party Government.
“Let me also say that in the period between 1995 and 1999 we had five hurricanes in four years, and that caused a disruption of at least thirty-five percent of our housing stock.”
With so many homes destroyed or damaged within St. Kitts-Nevis, the Minister said that the government took the initiative to build 1200 homes by 2000 and in 2003 announced another 1000 homes to be built with a cost of “approximately $45 million”.
It was with this backdrop that the Minister outlined the Ministry of Housing’s four-pronged plan for the over 800 homes that “are currently being constructed, renovated or expanded”.
Among those included in this plan were homes under the NHC 500 project, continued renovation and building for displaced workers from the closed sugar industry and the NEMA resettlement project for persons affected by last October’s Hurricane Omar.
“What we are doing [for Omar victims] is we are not only going to replace that house, but we are going to improve upon it so the building code and all of the standards will be adhered to so we don’t have any destruction to that area in the future,” Liburd said.
