Walker chides Administration for failing to present audited accounts on National Housing, as $10 million loan is approved

Barbuda MP Trevor Walker is adding his voice to the call for National Housing’s audited financial accounts to be laid before the Parliament.

Since the Browne Administration’s first term in office, the United Progressive Party has been making a similar call – which seems to have fallen on deaf ears, since only management accounts have ever been presented.

Walker reminds the Administration that, for years, the Government has been borrowing millions of dollars to inject into the entity; but there is no proof that the people have been getting value for money, despite the Prime Minister’s boast about the housing boom in Antigua and Barbuda.

Walker’s comments come on the heels of a Resolution that was passed by the Parliament on Monday, July 11, that sought permission to borrow another $10 million to inject into National Housing.

Walker warns the Government that it cannot continue to pump money into the entity without the people knowing how their tax dollars are being spent.

A resident involved in the construction industry, meanwhile, calls the request for another injection of $10 million “just incredible.”

“This is a project in which houses are sold,” he says. “This is not free housing provided for the indigent, like Section 8 housing for welfare recipients in America.

“Where is the profit on all the houses already sold; houses that were financed by bank loans the owners had to take out? And if there is no profit, then there is mismanagement, and an audit needs to be undertaken urgently,” he says.

Several years ago, the St. Phillip’s South MP, Lennox Weston, who is also the Minister of Works, declared that the Administration was burning money via the National Housing scheme of “500 Homes in 500 Days.”