More homes, safer families on ministers’ Budget wish lists

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

With the na­tion­al bud­get just days away, three Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have out­lined dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties, with Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee hop­ing for enough mon­ey to build more homes, Phillip Alexan­der push­ing to meet the Gov­ern­ment's hous­ing tar­get, and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der putting the pro­tec­tion of lives ahead of his min­istry's fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tion.

The three spoke to the me­dia dur­ing an HDC key dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny at The Canopies at Cau­ra yes­ter­day.

Lee spoke of the the coun­try's fi­nan­cial chal­lenges but said he hoped his min­istry would re­ceive what it re­quest­ed.

“My wish is that we get what we are asked for,” he said.

“I know that might be very dif­fi­cult giv­en the rev­enues in the coun­try at this point in time but we are hope­ful that what­ev­er we get we will make it do.”

Lee said the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) had de­liv­ered at least 400 homes since the Gov­ern­ment took of­fice, with an­oth­er 72 be­ing hand­ed over at the cer­e­mo­ny.

An­oth­er 28 units are ex­pect­ed short­ly, bring­ing the to­tal to 500.

He said the HDC al­so planned to con­struct 3,000 hous­ing units over the next year, in­clud­ing through pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships.

On the Gov­ern­ment's pro­posed 20,000 homes, Lee clar­i­fied that the fig­ure was a pro­jec­tion made dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign.

He said in­ves­ti­ga­tions and au­dits at the HDC had de­layed con­struc­tion, with dis­crep­an­cies un­cov­ered in­volv­ing hous­ing units, con­tracts and ex­pen­di­ture.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der, mean­while, said the Gov­ern­ment re­mained com­mit­ted to its hous­ing tar­get de­spite the chal­lenges.

He said that the 20,000 homes re­mained a goal but said the min­istry need­ed some­thing to work to­wards.

Alexan­der al­so linked home own­er­ship to crime re­duc­tion, say­ing the min­istry had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide fam­i­lies with prop­er hous­ing.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said his bud­get pri­or­i­ty was not sim­ply about how much mon­ey his min­istry would re­ceive.

“My bud­get wish, while in terms of mon­e­tary val­ue is im­por­tant, it's not all im­por­tant to us.”

“It's about the gov­ern­ment sav­ing lives and pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies.”

He said he would make what­ev­er al­lo­ca­tion his min­istry re­ceives work.

The min­is­ters spoke ahead of Mon­day's na­tion­al bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, when the Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to out­line its spend­ing pri­or­i­ties for the new fi­nan­cial year.