Dear Editor,

It is not very often that one gets so confused about a public issue such as the National Housing Trust (NHT)/Outameni debacle.

I am still not sure if the NHT is planning to operate Outameni as a business or if it plans to build houses, or both. However, in any case, I have to agree with the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) that something just isn’t right about this business. There are conflicting messages coming from both the Government and the NHT.

If the NHT is indeed planning to build houses, then they aren’t going to be cheap. As the JLP’s Vaz pointed out, at $180 million those houses will be beyond the reach of the average NHT contributor.

If the NHT was planning to build houses and develop a part of the Outameni property as an attraction, then the cost per acre to the contributor will be too much as some of the property will be for Outameni.

Also, the former owner of the Outameni property advised the NHT that those lands are not suitable for housing development. As such, one asks the question of what kind of houses the NHT is planning to build on those lands?

As for the NHT planning to turn Outameni into some sort of business, that doesn’t seem to make sense either. Other potential investors, including the Tourism Product Development Company, made it clear that, as far as making Outameni a profitable business, there is no hope. Indeed, we were made to understand that even the technical advisors of the NHT strongly advised the NHT’s board not to purchase the property.

Something is amiss here, and I don’t like the smell of it! However, in order to help solve this problem, I think that there are three things that should be done.

Firstly, a member of the NHT board told us that the Trust got the property at a bargain and that if it was forced to sell the property it would still gain. If this is true, then I would strongly advise that the NHT get itself out of Outameni by selling it as soon as possible.

Secondly, while I don’t always think that firing anybody will solve problems, I believe that this case requires that some heads should roll. I agree with the JLP that the board should go. How can the NHT justify squandering $180 million at a time when it is cutting grants to contributors? I really think that the members of the board should do the honourable thing and go.

Finally, a limit on the amount of money that the NHT board can spend should be put in place, if one is not there already. Let’s say that any amount above $50 million should require Cabinet approval. I don’t think that the NHT should have such free rein to spend contributors’ money like this.

This NHT saga is rapidly becoming a major scandal. I think the NHT should get itself out of this mess as soon as it can.

Michael A Dingwall,

michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com