KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) says that an analysis of the level of funding that the National Housing Trust (NHT) needs to carry out its mandate is far less than it is currently receiving.

“The NHT’s present level of housing construction and mortgage financing remains feasible if employer contributions are reduced to two per cent and employee contributions are eliminated entirely,” CaPRI, a not-for-profit public policy think tank based at the University of the West Indies (UWI) said in an assessment of the performance of the NHT made public Monday night.

The report said: “At that level of contributions, the NHT is infinitely sustainable. The remaining three per cent of the wage bill that the Trust would no longer receive could then either be left in the pockets of employees and employers (to boost disposable income) or it could be diverted to income taxes (support the programme of fiscal consolidation),” the report said.

It also stated: “An analysis of the distribution of benefits across income levels reveals a disturbing picture, especially given the mandate of the NHT to support the housing needs of the poor. Middle and upper-income contributors have received more mortgages than those in the lower income groups.

“Between 2009 and 2014, contributors earning more than $20,000 weekly – which is the highest income group served by the Trust – were twice as likely to gain mortgages as contributors earning less than J$10,000 – the lowest income group.

“Contributors in the lowest income group received only 23 per cent of the mortgages disbursed during the said period, revealing that the vast majority of mortgages went to households that were well above the poverty line. The NHT, therefore, appears to be an instrument of a perverse majority of its benefits accrue to those who are better off. Poorer contributors are subsidising wealthier ones.”

Balford Henry