CABINET has approved a contract for just more than $101 million to continue work on the sugar workers’ housing project which was started in 2000.

Minister of Information Senator Burchell Whiteman told yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing that the contract for $101.5 million had been awarded to M & M Jamaica Limited to undertake infrastructure works at the Bernard Lodge Sugar Company’s housing site at Hartlands in St Catherine.

The Hartlands project is located approximately 2.5 kilometres outside of Spanish Town. The entrance is on Hartlands Main Road, off the Old Harbour Road. The average lot site is 370 square metres. The serviced lots are expected to cost $395,000 and the studio units $850,000.

M&M’s scope of work includes: erecting a 2,313-metre square of roads with marl base, concrete kerbs and asphaltic concrete wearing surface; 386 metres of potable water distribution mains, including firefighting equipment; storm water collection and drainage system; and 386 metres of sewage collection mains.

The housing programme commenced in February 2000 as part of the collective agreement between the Sugar Producers’ Federation (SPF) and the three unions representing sugar workers – the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), the National Workers’ Union (NWU) and the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU).

It requires the erection of 5,000 houses and service lots for workers on nine sugar estates who are contributors to the National Housing Trust (NHT), by February, 2005.