NHT Contributions Are Safe – Mitchell
September 20, 2011The Full Story
KINGSTON — Contributors to the National Housing Trust (NHT) are being reassured that their funds are secure, even as the agency moves to set up a Foundation, using money from contributions that have remained unclaimed for 17 years, to address the needs of the society’s indigent in infirmaries and golden age homes.
Informing that work on the establishment of the Foundation is “well underway”, the agency’s Chairman, Howard Mitchell said that there is no intention on the part of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), which has portfolio responsibility for the NHT, nor the agency, to “attempt to take away anybody’s contributions, whether or not they have come for (them).”
He was addressing a recent Roundtable Discussion forum at the NHT’s New Kingston offices.
During his presentation in the 2011/12 Budget Debate in May, Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding, announced the proposed formation of the Foundation to be funded through $600 million from the NHT. This sum represents 50 per cent of contributions currently held by the agency, which have remained unclaimed for 17 years.
“We thought of that because there is a responsibility that the society has to the indigent, to people who are less fortunate – the elderly, the children, that, perhaps, we are not meeting that responsibility as effectively as we should. So the Trust is attempting to set up a mechanism, through the Foundation, to deal with that,” Mr. Golding stated.
Mr. Mitchell said that the matter is being deliberated on by the principals of the organisation, who will be returning to the drawing board for further discussions.
“We’ll come to Parliament, (and) we’ll come to the public with the (concept of) Foundation, as we see it, and it will have to be approved by Parliament, in the way that matters of this nature have to be approved. There will be no under the table Nicodemus, fly-by-night effort to take away contributors’ money, or to use it for purposes that they don’t approve of,” he assured.
The forum, which was held under the theme: ‘Conversations with the NHT’, was attended by a wide cross-section of private and public sector stakeholders in the housing industry. It was aimed at facilitating discussions and presentations on the delivery of more affordable solutions to the market.
By Douglas Mcintosh, JIS Reporter