Labour MP Karl Chircop yesterday urged the government to appoint a lead person to coordinate the activities of the Housing Authority, the Department of Social Housing and the Housing Construction and Maintenance Department until the long planned merger of the three took place.

Dr Chircop was speaking on the first day of a two-day debate in Parliament on the estimates of the Housing Authority.

He said it was a pity that these three organisations had not been merged yet.

This only led to excessive bureaucracy and different priorities. He could not understand how Anton Camilleri, director of the Construction and Repair Department, did not sit on the Housing Authority's board, as was the case of the director of the Social Housing Department.

Dr Chircop said that while there was need for a single entity, rather than three, to manage the government's housing policy, there was also need for speedier procedures at Mepa. There had been a case, for example, where a development application for social housing in Pembroke, filed in the Labour government in 1997, was only approved by Mepa after eight years in a process which had included a reconsideration after the initial permit was rejected.

Dr Chircop said the Housing Authority had, and was continuing to do a lot of good but far better results could be achieved with existing funds if there was a little more attention and less waste on bureaucracy and duplication.

Turning to the people's perception of the Housing Authority, Dr Chircop said that housing units issued by the authority were seen as being too expensive, even though they were 20 to 25 per cent cheaper than sales by private estate agents. There were also many complaints that the standard of finishing of these units left much to be desired and repairs were wiping out a substantial part of the savings. This harmed the image of the authority. Certainly, the authority should not be seen as creating a favourable environment for certain contractors.

Two forms of tender were currently being issued by the authority - construction and quantity surveying, the latter being necessary for contractors to be paid. Clearly, however, there was also need for quality surveying. There was also need for tender specifications to be issued in detail, to remove the need for questionable variations. For example, development at Mgarr originally projected to cost Lm 1.38 million had ended up costing Lm2.8 million.

Dr Chircop said that within the context of the Condominium Act the authority should promote the creation of a fund, possibly paid for through contributions by the tenants, to properly maintain common areas in apartment blocks. Alternatively the authority could allocate a portion of its revenue for this purpose.

Turning to prices, Dr Chircop said different solutions should be offered. For example, the authority could offer some of its housing units in shell form.

Dr Chircop said the authority should reinforce its social housing role. The concept of shared ownership had positives but there were potential problems with regard to long term management, such as management of loans and payments. This scheme confirmed how the sale price of the authority's housing units was out of reach of low income people. He felt that the authority should reserve more units under this scheme to engaged couples.

The Labour MP urged the authority to broaden its scheme for the installation of lifts in apartment blocks and said unnecessary regulation and conditions needed to be removed.

Dr Chircop said it was disgraceful that the Housing Authority's social spending was being reduced by Lm700,000 over last year. The highest amount of social spending was under Labour in 1997! The difference was wider when one factored in house price inflation.

Capital expenditure was also down over the previous year.

Dr Chircop said it was unacceptable that tenants were given the keys upon signing their contract, only to find that they had to start paying rent or a loan when their units could not be used immediately, because power, water or sewerage were not connected yet.

This again underlined the need for proper project management.

The Labour MP said the government was not doing anything to reduce the growth in property prices. The situation was made worse when, as a result of the scheme for the repatriation of foreign assets, the growth in house prices was accelerated.

He complained that most of the allocations of social housing were being made in the north even though housing problems were more acute in the south.

Concluding, Dr Chircop again called for better project management by the authority and more efficiency in the use of its resources.

Stefan Buontempo (MLP) said he could not understand how in these times of financial difficulty, the Housing Authority was spending Lm225,000 on its offices between last year and this year. This meant the authority was spending an average of Lm3,500 per employee!

He observed that last year the authority did not spend Lm2 million allocated to it for new building.

It was now planning to spend Lm3 million on the purchase of vacant properties in village cores, but it had given scant details in its report. How would this scheme work? According to an interview in The Times, the authority would buy 100 units at Lm30,000 each.

Similarly, the authority in its publications was saying nothing on how it planned to encourage landlords to make properties available for rent.

He hoped that these two schemes would not result in the purchase of properties from friends of the government.

In planning to spend Lm3 million for the purchase and resale of properties, the authority would be turning itself into a speculator or an estate agent. That was not the role of the authority.

Dr Buontempo observed that the Housing Authority frequently boasted that it subsidised the sale of housing units by up to a third. But this was not true. It only needed to be borne in mind that land was being transferred to the authority by the Joint Office following agreement with the Holy See. These lands were being transferred at a social price of just Lm400 per tomna.

But the apartments were not being sold at social prices. Indeed, the conditions for the sale of properties were so tough, they were leading to the break-up of couples.

Even NGOs were getting 50 per cent less in funding from the authority, Dr Buontempo said.

He observed that recurrent expenditure for the authority was Lm1 million. But were the most vulnerable people of society better off? His answer was that they were not finding the help they needed.

Yet the authority this year was projecting revenue of Lm3 million more from the sale of its properties. Part of this stemmed from the fact that the authority was demanding high prices to sell units to existing tenants.

Dr Buontempo criticised the fact that the merger of the Housing Authority and the Social Housing Department had not happened. This idea, he recalled, had first been floated in 1986 and the question now was whether this merger was actually possible. The minister herself had complained of funds being wasted because of this situation. So what was she doing about it?

Dr Buontempo regretted that the Housing Authority report said nothing about energy saving in Housing Authority residential units, this when power charges had gone up steeply.

Was the role of the authority now only to buy and sell properties when its main aim was to help the most vulnerable sectors of society?

The debate continues today.

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