MILE GULLY, Manchester — Opposition Leader Mark Golding is urging Prime Minister Andrew Holness to reverse the Government’s decision to end interest rate subsidies for specific categories of contributors to the National Housing Trust (NHT).

“I am calling on the prime minister to ‘wheel and come again’ and reverse this change to the benefits that were given to the persons with disabilities, public sector workers, and persons of 55 and over,” Golding said while addressing the People’s National Party’s Manchester North Western constituency conference in Mile Gully on Saturday.

He argued that the NHT was launched by [former Prime Minister] Michael Manley as an innovative piece of social engineering to provide a mechanism to give workers access to housing.

“The National Housing Trust was a special piece of creative thinking and it has delivered tens of thousands of housing solutions over the years to ordinary Jamaicans, people who would not otherwise have access to a house. So when I hear that they are announcing that important benefits for certain critical categories of people in our population are being taken away — that is benefits that the public sector workers has enjoyed, people with disabilities have enjoyed,” he said.

“Persons of 55 years and over they too are going to be losing benefits that were available to them before through the NHT,” he added.

He questioned the Government’s rationale in ending the interest rate subsidies for certain categories of NHT contributors.

“They talking about making the system more equitable. How is it more equitable to take benefits from people who need them the most?” asked Golding.

“…Removing this interest rate discount from the public sector workers is another blow to the public sector following the recent removal of the motor vehicle concession and you are doing it at a time when we are losing talent in the public sector,” he added.

According to Golding, the NHT has been “denuded” of $11.4 billion annually by the Government to help finance the budget.

He argued that the Portia Simpson Miller-led Administration had to show that there was a “viable programme” before taking $11.4 billion out of the NHT surplus for four years.

“The legislation was passed, it had a sunset clause that said after the fourth year it comes to an end, and that was at a time when we had to run a 7.5 per cent surplus each year, that is a massive surplus to try and get that debt under control for the future of Jamaica’s people,” he said.

Golding pointed to the actions of the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) affiliates in 2013 in taking the constitutionality of the NHT (Special Provisions) Act to court.

“They opposed it bitterly. Of course, they lost the court case, but when they came into office in 2016, one of the first things they did in 2017 was to pass another amendment to the NHT Act to extend that extraction of resources of $11.4 billion a year for a further four years – from 2017 to 2021,” he said.

“When that four-year period was coming to an end in 2020 they went back to Parliament and amended the NHT Act again to extend it for a further five years to March 2026, so nine years beyond where it was intended to be…” he added.

“As a result, now they feel they need to pop up its profitability… by taking away the discount in interest rates that were afforded to persons with disabilities, public sector workers, and people who are 55 and over,” said Golding.

In a release last week, the NHT announced that, going forward, income will be the sole determinant of interest rate subsidies.

“This move will allow the organisation to better identify and channel more resources to our contributors who need additional assistance,” said the NHT as it indicated the end in some special subsidies.

The NHT argued that its strategic focus going forward is geared at, among other things, a more equitable distribution of benefits, and where subsidies and grants are concerned, targeting them to those contributors who need it the most.

“The NHT’s imperative is the doubling down of its efforts to create more housing solutions for Jamaicans,” said the trust in its release.