The Board of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) has suspended the 1000 homes turn-key project and will restructure it to allow homeowners to have greater input in how they want their houses built.
The nine contract employees attached to the project, who have been accused of showing no responsibility and having no accountability, will be let go at the end of the month.
“We are suspending the project and they are all on month-to-month contracts. They were responsible for the confusion we had at Perseverance and Providence. We have been losing things regularly, no accountability etcetera,” Chairman of the CHPA Board Hamilton Green told Stabroek News yesterday.
“We are reorganising the arrangement. We are going to get hold of credible supervisors and engineers to manage the project. We are looking around for a good supervisor and good engineers for the project,” he added. He emphasised that the project will be advertised and the best qualified applicants selected.
The Board had halted the turnkey housing project earlier this year to undertake a review and decide on a way forward. Following a meeting yesterday, it was determined that the project as it stands, is not viable.
Back in March, Green had explained to Stabroek News some of the problems which were inherited and said that he did not believe buyers of the homes were getting their money’s worth.
“We want people to get value for their money. So that we don’t just dump persons in a structure, and give them two bedrooms, a light and a toilet. If John or Lilawattie has paid for a home, they can see the contractor, and if a room is being built with two outlets and they want three or four, they can work out an arrangement and have it…It gives them intimacy with their new homes and interface with the contractors,” he added.
According to Green, construction will now not be limited to just one contractor for all the homes in a community, as was currently the case. He said that the project will be tendered out in lots so various companies will be building homes at the same cost but with varying designs.
“The Board is looking at new means of building. We met a system with persons called foremen where the authority was providing material to build homes. But the thing is, they can’t, to date, tell me how much material has been lost over the years so I proposed that we allocate by tender, groups of houses to contractors, who as business people, will ensure the material is not stolen as what is happening now…So the homeowner will be given a chance to meet the contractors building their homes. This new plan CHPA believes, can guarantee value for money as the homeowners will be able to monitor the works being undertaken,” Green said.
“When I took over as chairman, I was very concerned about the low quality of workmanship and materials on many of these so-called turn-key houses. With the other board members, we have proposed a halt so that there will be development of a new plan. Right now, we will only permit the completion of homes which already [are] halfway or three-quarters way complete. We found instances where homes were not occupied because of complaints by the potential homeowners and their families of poor quality work. I am telling you, from walls cracking before completion, floors, doors everything. So we put a halt on any expansion to allow us to come up with a new regime, a new modus operandi that should save us from the misuse of funds so that the home owners are the real beneficiaries and not a group of persons with certain connections,” Green declared.
He asserted that evidence showed that the work was poor and it was not limited to the houses, as roads were also of a poor quality and potholed-riddled with inferior materials used as the base.
Stabroek News understands that separate criminal investigations are also being undertaken by the police as it pertains to theft of equipment and materials for the homes.
