The Board of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) was dissolved because the “rancour” between it and the agency’s staff saw very little work being done, Minister of State Joseph Harmon has said.
And while the board has still not been officially informed of its dissolution, it will be apprised sometime next week when a new board is sworn in.
The Minister of State, in an interview with Stabroek News yesterday, pointed to the fact that the CH&PA had only spent 20 percent of its budgetary allocation last year, primarily due to internal conflict between the Board and CH&PA staff.
Yesterday was the first time that the government provided reasons for the dissolution of the board.
“For last year, the CH&PA, only 20 percent of the budget was spent. Can you imagine 20 percent? How can you have a housing sector that is so critical to the development of this country and you have an authority that is wrangling with another? Every time a letter has to be signed for something, you have to wait one month, two month and they telling the Minister [in the Ministry of Communities Valerie Patterson] all sorts of nonsense. She has reported it…one time she announced the 50/50 [scheme for land payments] and the board came back and said that was unlawful, this was unlawful. It was too much of rancour,” Harmon stressed.
“There is a saying that when elephants are fighting, it is the grass that feels the heat. So while all of that was going on, all of government’s programme for housing this nation was being stymied. You allocated sums of money and because of internal this and that and so on, it can’t be done. I mean for a whole year? Come on! How am I going to stand up to you next year and say ‘Well coming up in in 2020 vote for me because I have done this; I have given so much houses, developed communities’ but when monies are allocated it is not spent? The confusion man, the expenditure on housing and the housing sector for a whole year was ridiculous,” he added.
Members of the board told Stabroek News on Sunday that they are still not aware that it has been dissolved since December 31st, 2016.
It was Harmon who in January made the announcement of the dissolution at a post-Cabinet press briefing.
However, confused members told Stabroek News that they had actually met in January and were supposed to have met again last Thursday. That meeting saw an impromptu cancellation as the Secretary of the board informed all members that the meeting had been called off and they would be notified as to the way forward soon.
Sources told this newspaper that several of the members were baffled since Chairman of the Board Hamilton Green was still signing documents in that capacity as of last Wednesday.
When Stabroek News contacted Green on Thursday he would only say that he was still unaware of the board’s dissolution.
He was appointed as the Chair of the CH&PA board in October, 2015,
Apologies
Harmon said that the Board should have been aware of its dissolution and offered apologies if it was not but was quick to explain that next week, when the new board is approved, all parties will be formally notified.
“The old board will get the notification when the new board is approved and certified by the president, and I expect that within a week all of these things will be in place,” Harmon asserted.
Asked why government did not notify the members, he said they already knew. “They knew. They were in touch with the Minister of Communities [Ronald Bulkan] and he would have communicated to them, I am sure he would have, because he would have been the minister making recommendations for the new board. So if they were not communicated to in a formal sense, well we apologise for that, but I know some of them have actually called me and I have indicated to them,” he noted.
It is the Minister of Communities that Harmon also pointed to as being responsible for giving the go ahead to Minister in the Ministry of Communities Patterson for her to visit Poland on the invitation of a housing developer there.
Sources close to the CH&PA have said that the board was unaware of not only Patterson’s trip but also that a Polish company had been expressing interest in undertaking works for the agency.
Some expressed their perplexity and even questioned the timing of the announcing of the dissolution of the board and Patterson’s visit to Poland. They said the decision would have “certainly been scrutinized with a fine teeth comb” by the board.
One past board member questioned why a team of engineers did not accompany Patterson as the technicalities of the Polish company’s building construction methods would have been better received and questioned. “She will visit and see yes but will she be able to ask the critical engineering questions? And even if she does asks prepared questions, will she be able to follow up with answers given? I doubt so very much,” one source said.
But Harmon said that as long as government is not spending out of State coffers for invitational trips by other governments or businesses, a minister can decide if he/she wants to send a representative from their ministry.
However, that decision must be based on discretion and in keeping with his government’s transparency mandate.
“It [Patterson’s Poland visit] would have probably been approved by the Minister of Communities because the minister has certain powers to approve certain things. So, once there was no expense on the part of the state, you can have ministerial approval. I am sure the minister would have been apprised and given all the circumstances would have approved the visit. If there is no expenditure, you would get a ministerial approval, which would be sent to the minister of state. It is almost like a Cabinet decision but it within the power of the minister to make and then he will then just send a notification to the minister of state,” he explained.
