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There is more worrying news surrounding the financial affairs of the state run National Housing Trust, (NHT).
Managing Director of the NHT Earl Samuels, confirmed that the agency is to record a half a billion dollar deficit for the financial year 2007-2008.
This is after accounting for the various grants and subsidies.
Mr. Samuels revealed that the decision to subsidise some housing programmes including the Sugar Workers Housing and Inner City Housing Programmes, helped to contribute to the deficit.
This follows on the heels of the agency's nearly $2 billion operating deficit last year.
Mr. Samuels said, "We are looking at a loss of about $500 million dollar for 07/08 and this is due a reduction in our investment income because the pool of funds for investing has been reduced by about $7 billion, so we will be making lower returns both as a result of a reduction in the amount we have to invest and a reduction in the interest rate."
It emerged in 2005 that the Government's decision to withdraw $5 billion from the entity to fund the Education Transformation programme, left the agency in the red.
But Mr. Samuels said the agency remained viable.
He said the Board had approved a major programme to improve the agency's financial position.
"We cannot continue to operate at that level so we are putting strategies in place and these will be communicated to the public in the next couple of weeks. We will still continue to provide mortgages to our contributors at what we hope is the same level of subsidy, on the interest rates. But the capital write off, we are going to have to revisit that," he said.
In the meantime, Mr. Samuels said the agency is moving to clear the huge backlog of contributions refund applications, which had multiplied since the start of the year.
He said this demand resulted in delays in processing contribution refunds cheques, but that measures will be implemented to speed up the process.
"We were looking at receiving about 30,000 applications for the month of January, but to the 29th we received over 50,000 applications. We had promised a three day turn around but this became impossible, until we are able to adjust our back office to deal with this above expected applications. We have assigned additional staff to the area, and we are also working longer hours to normalise the situation," he explained
Managing Director of the NHT Earl Samuels, confirmed that the agency is to record a half a billion dollar deficit for the financial year 2007-2008.
This is after accounting for the various grants and subsidies.
Mr. Samuels revealed that the decision to subsidise some housing programmes including the Sugar Workers Housing and Inner City Housing Programmes, helped to contribute to the deficit.
This follows on the heels of the agency's nearly $2 billion operating deficit last year.
Mr. Samuels said, "We are looking at a loss of about $500 million dollar for 07/08 and this is due a reduction in our investment income because the pool of funds for investing has been reduced by about $7 billion, so we will be making lower returns both as a result of a reduction in the amount we have to invest and a reduction in the interest rate."
It emerged in 2005 that the Government's decision to withdraw $5 billion from the entity to fund the Education Transformation programme, left the agency in the red.
But Mr. Samuels said the agency remained viable.
He said the Board had approved a major programme to improve the agency's financial position.
"We cannot continue to operate at that level so we are putting strategies in place and these will be communicated to the public in the next couple of weeks. We will still continue to provide mortgages to our contributors at what we hope is the same level of subsidy, on the interest rates. But the capital write off, we are going to have to revisit that," he said.
In the meantime, Mr. Samuels said the agency is moving to clear the huge backlog of contributions refund applications, which had multiplied since the start of the year.
He said this demand resulted in delays in processing contribution refunds cheques, but that measures will be implemented to speed up the process.
"We were looking at receiving about 30,000 applications for the month of January, but to the 29th we received over 50,000 applications. We had promised a three day turn around but this became impossible, until we are able to adjust our back office to deal with this above expected applications. We have assigned additional staff to the area, and we are also working longer hours to normalise the situation," he explained
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