Minister: $798m spent on 'ghost houses' under UNC

HOUSING Minister Camille Robinson-Regis said on Thursday that under the former People's Partnership government some $789 million was spent on housing that cannot be identified today which she dubbed "ghost housing." She was speaking on the budget in the House of Representatives.

She said she was basing her remarks on the findings of an audit by KPMG covering 2011-2015 where the auditor could not verify the existence of housing units.

Auditors had just completed years of audits, including some qualified audits when information was missing.

"What was even more alarming was the inability of the auditors to verify the existence of housing units allegedly constructed to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars during the period 2011-2015."

Robinson-Regis quoted the report.

"There is an unanalysed sum of approximately $789 million representing costs of housing units that could not be attributed to identified or identifiable physical structures."

At that, the Prime Minister loudly exclaimed, "What! What?"

The report said it could not get documentary support for construction costs so could not perform relevant audit tests.

"What this means is there were buildings allegedly constructed but they could not find the buildings. And paid for.

"So the taxpayer paid for ghost houses."

She read from the auditor's report, saying the management had not provided documents on the repayment terms of $180 million in loans involving the NLCB.

Robinson-Regis said it said the auditor did know know if interest or covenants were applicable to the loan, and whether the loan was secured on HDC assets.

"We have been unable to obtain appropriate and sufficient evidence of the existence and valuation of $180,566,982 reported within 'loans receivable' held at our financial institutions."

Robinson-Regis said that indicated "money missing" supposedly for the repayment of a loan supposedly taken from the NLCB.

"Imagine! We are now trying to find out what this was all about.

"But there is nothing on the books or otherwise that tells us where this is, if it was a loan from NLCB, where it was a loan to NLCB. So we are investigating this."

She scoffed that the Opposition now wanted to tell the Government how to run the country.

"If anybody takes God out of their thoughts and votes them back into Government, they need licks!" she hit, "And God help us."

Robinson-Regis said the ministry was working assiduously with the auditors on this matter.

She denied claims by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal in the budget debate on Wednesday over a design-build-finance housing project at Trestrail Lands in D'Abadie. He had called for an investigation into how 100 townhouses in the $100 million development were deemed structurally unsound and recommended for demolition, as he estimated they would cost $10-20 million to repair. He said alarms were raised in a report commissioned by the HDC last year, done by engineering consultant, CEP Ltd, on the project undertaken in 2019 by contractor Ricky Raghunanan Ltd, after the HDC's board had raised concerns in 2021 on structural issues on the project.

Robinson-Regis detailed a series of correspondence from February 2022 to May 2023 sent to the contractor saying he must fix any defects in the project.

She said in June the HDC had met the contractor to say it was not happy how long he was taking to remediate.

The HDC had written to the contractor to say the units were not fit for purpose and so the HDC could not take possession of them.

"The contractor must bring them to a standard fit for purpose."

Robinson-Regis said it was "totally untrue" to say the taxpayer must pay millions of dollars towards remediation costs.

"The HDC entered a situation where the contractor must remediate at his own cost. We are continuing to take the right action."