(l to r ) Hon. Premier Romeo and Minister Hogan
Following one of the highlight features of Premier Romeo of the new People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) government first budget presentation, Minister for Agriculture, Land, Housing and the Environment (MAHLE), made the following announcement among others. “Going forward this PDM Administration will be creating the environment in which the private sector is allowed to finance
, build and sell houses.”
He was delivering the feature address at the 44th Annual St. Patrick’s Co-operative Credit Unit annual General Meeting, on April 30, 2015. He said: We will therefore support: 1. Private Housing; 2. Social Housing; and 3. Welfare Housing.
The Minister in his speech introduced the housing matter thus. “Housing is one of the most important sub-sectors within the construction industry. Not only does it provide short-term boost to the economy in terms of employment and cash-flow; Housing remains one of the basic needs of mankind as shelter, in addition to food and water.”
He outlined the plan from which it is reported The Minister has access to $3 million.
He explained: “To promote private housing we will maintain a policy where a contractor or developer can be retained, or a private person retain his own contractor to build a house with all imported building materials duty free and consumption tax free on a property valued at least US$300,000.
According to the Minister, The Ministry of Housing is also proposing to enter into an arrangement with Private Banks, the Bank of Montserrat included and the Montserrat Social Security Fund (MSSF) to finance housing, on serviced lots to be made available by the Government of Montserrat (GoM).
Following a means test basis, recommendations for GoM support will become available from a range of options to include Mortgage Facilitation, after which a Government Financed Soft Mortgage Scheme can then kick in to support.
That scheme within the SPCCU is divided into two parts, as follows: Affordable Home Buy, where the repayment plan is on the basis of what can be paid from net earnings; and the second part is called the Home Mortgage Scheme, where the SPCCU interviews and shortlists the clients based on their own SPCCU internal requirements.
The minister informed, “We are now positioning to launch a material grant scheme around the end of May 2015 and the criteria covers enabling those persons who are struggling to complete their current new start houses to do so before Christmas this year 2015.”
“Lastly,” he told the AGM audience. “we have agreed in principle with the SPCCU and we have promulgated that understanding within the 2015 budget statement the GoM’s intention to convert our current mortgage stock with the SPCCU valued at several million EC dollars to Permanent Shares in the St Patrick’s Cooperative Credit Union. This is subject to certain legal and regulatory requirements being satisfied.”
Doing this he explained: “The GoM will in accordance with the Credit Union principle, maintain one vote where applicable within the system notwithstanding the large value of our permanent investment with the St Patrick’s Cooperative Credit Union.”
