Joseph Shoucair, managing director of the Housing Agency of Jamaica, says a US$35 million loan is being negotiated.

Operation PRIDE, the government's low- to middle-income housing programme, is to be thrown a J$3 billion lifeline if an application for a US$35 million loan, now before the Chinese Government, is given the green light.

The recently rebranded Housing Agency of Jamaica Limited (HAJ), formerly the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC), is to use the money to complete some of the 100 Operation PRIDE projects in its portfolio.

Concessionary funding

And, according to HAJ managing director Joseph Shou-cair, the funds could come at a very cheap price.

"We have asked for US$35 million to help us to fund these projects," said Shoucair.

"This concessionary funding from the Chinese will not be grant funding. It is concessionary, and it may be at two per cent or three per cent over 20 years," he told Wednesday Business.

But while Shoucair says the loan would be a "substantial" boost to the programme, it still represents less than one-sixth the J$20 billion he says is needed to complete 80 of the 100 schemes.

To make up the shortfall, the housing agency will be leaning on the already burdened 2009/2010 national budget, with submissions to central government already made.

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson launched the Operation PRIDE programme in the 1990s and marketed it as his administration's big idea to make an impact on the country's housing shortage and widespread absence of formal land ownership.

The initiative was modelled on the sites and services experiment of the PNP administration led by Michael Manley in the 1970s designed to give ordinary Jamaicans access to land served with infrastructure such as paved roads, electricity and piped water.

Positive legacy

Operation PRIDE, however, failed to live up to its billing as a positive legacy for Patterson after the programme became embroiled in controversy.

The 17-month-old Bruce Golding-led government is seeking to breathe new life into the limping shelter programme, with the HAJ managing director pointing out that the agency is now doing major work at Mammee Bay in St Ann, where it is spending $200 million to complete 325 shelter units.

Work is also under way at Flankers in St James, where the HAJ is pumping in $140 million to complete 1,000 lots with the necessary infrastructure.

"We are putting in roads, we are putting in culverts, electricity, water sewerage systems," he said.

Mammee Bay should be completed by the end of next month, while it will be another year before work at Flankers is completed, according to Shoucair.

The HAJ is now on a four-week tour of five parishes, looking over stalled projects in Portland, St Thomas, St Mary, Westmoreland and St Catherine.

Shoucair said that the January 30 to February 27 tour was necessary to update persons, many of whom were allotted Operation PRIDE lots under the former administration, on plans to complete the schemes.

He noted that the commitment to complete the projects remains, despite the change of government.

Meet with communities

"We have not been communicating with these people effectively," Shoucair conceded.

"What we decided to do was to go out there and meet with all these communities, sit down with them and say, look, right now we don't have the cash to finish your job but the government is committed to completing the projects. We are going to deal with all of you in a structured manner."

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com