GML ENTERPRISE DESK
Acting Prime Minister, Finance Minister Colm Imbert says that The Government wants to enter into an arrangement with the private sector to build houses “to help stimulate economic activity, create employment and also so that the state does not have to put out billions of dollars to build houses.”
Speaking to the GML Enterprise Desk, Minister Imbert, who is working from home following minor surgery, said: “The plan is to provide fiscal incentives to private housing developers in such a manner that they would be motivated to finance and construct houses.”
He explained that in thinking the plan through the government was hoping that “the private sector would raise the financing , whether it be bridge or construction financing, construct the houses in accordance with agreed designs, simple designs nothing elaborate and then those houses would be matched to mortgages being offered by the TTMF and the Home Mortgage Bank.”
He said “the government plans to merge the two institutions (the TTMF and the HMB) and create one large institution.”
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced the initiative on Tuesday night, telling that country: “We intend to ramp up housing construction as a major driver of the economy, but there will be a comprehensive over haul of the funding arrangements of the programme.”
Imbert explained: “There are already about fifty thousand approved mortgages at the TTMF and the HMB but there are no houses to match them with, so that is where the money would come from. The mortgage institution would provide the funding to take out the construction cost and the government would take up any shortfall or settle any delay in the payment by the mortgage institutions to the private sector. In short we would guarantee the payment.” He said people who purchased the houses would provide the repayment for the construction work and the Government would pick up the slack.
The objective of the initiative according to the Prime Minister was to “stimulate economic growth by selectively using what is available in the most innovative way.”
Minister Imbert said the benefits would be the creation of employment and the stimulation of economic activity,” telling the Enterprise Desk: “We want to mobilise local resources, construction material utilise primarily local stuff, aggregate and so on. The whole point is to get the private sector involved so that government does not have to put out billions of dollars to build houses.”
He admitted that the concept was in the early stages but he said it would get off the ground in 2016.