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T&T state houses' warranties shorter than the appliances' within them?

February 4, 2010 by Edmund Gall

According to reports, the new homes built by Housing Development Corporation (HDC - the organisation responsible for the building and distribution of state housing to persons in need) in Harmony Hall, Gasparillo, are already cracked, even before the home-owners have moved in.  Rusty kitchen sinks and incomplete staircases were found in the homes, and unfinished landscaping with bushes running up the sides of the buildings.
 
How do the creatures - I hesitate to call them human - who do this to people sleep at night?
 
To the state representatives responsible for delivery of such housing, you may not have done such poor work directly, but if you fail to get it repaired and penalise the contractors who did, then you will be equally guilty.  It's despicable.
 
In response, Housing Minister Tina Gronlund-Nunez, stated that the new tenants have only six months to identify all problems they had with HDC homes.  Why?  For insurance purposes, buildings are ascribed a life of several decades.  If over the course of these years a fault develops that can be attributed to poor workmanship by the builders, then they should be liable for it.  Is she saying that a state house has a shorter warranty - six months - than the appliances that their tenants would buy?  Surely not!
{Read more}

If you lost $10 million, would you go look for it?

December 10, 2009 by Edmund Gall

Preface: As indicated by Ms Margaret Rose, in her comment below (Comment ID 204), I have made some errors in my post, for which I wish to unreservedly apologise.  The corrections to the original post, which I've left unchanged below so readers can understand the comments and this preface, are as follows:

  • Mr Noel Garcia is NOT the Chairman of the HDC; he is the former Managing Director of the HDC.  The current MD appears to be Ms Jearlean John and the current Chairman is Mr Sydney Mcintosh (based on Googled reports in the Trinidad Guardian, since the official HDC pages on the Ministry of Planning, Housing and the Environment's website do not list the names of the HDC board or its senior managers at the moment). Ms Ria Taitt also referred to him as "former managing director of the Housing Development Corporation" in her article that triggered my post, so I should've spotted this.
  • Prof Uff did NOT ask Mr Garcia if he was going to investigate further - since he is not the current MD, it would be impossible to do so. The following is the beginning of the exchange I refer to in my post below, as quoted from Ms Ria Taitt's article:"Uff then asked whether Garcia would take the view that this issue required further investigation, 'not by the commission because we have taken it as far as we can with the evidence we have, but further investigation elsewhere'."
  • Since Mr Garcia is already the ex-MD of the HDC, my closing sentences are nonsense.

I sincerely apologise for these errors on my part and thank Ms Rose for pointing them out to me. Even if I'm chilled on vacation, I should not have made such errors and apologise to Mr Garcia and any others impacted for any hurt caused. {Read more}

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