Govt has done nothing over the past 14 years to provide affordable housing to low income earners - Nawaikula

SODELPA MP Niko Nawaikula says that government has achieved nothing over the past 14 years in providing affordable housing to low-income earners however the Minister for Housing Premila Kumar says government has achieved a lot.

Nawaikula highlighted this during the parliamentary debate of the 2015 Report on Annual Review of the Housing Authority

He says this is a shame and there is nothing for government to look up on.

Nawaikula says the Housing Authority has lost its core role.

Premila Kumar says Housing Authority has done a lot in the past couple of years in land development.

However Kumar says the Authority needs to change the way it functions.

She says they have identified two companies that will work with the Housing Authority to get strata apartments done.

Kumar says there are some lots that has not being given out because it has been considered for strata apartments as it will be cheaper.

Kumar says they have done strata apartments within Housing Authority for certain flats but on a smaller scale.

She says to get the strata apartment done, there needs to be cost-benefit analysis, more understanding of how the law should be applied and what should be the strata management in place.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says before there were a lot of people that paid more than what they actually borrowed because Housing Authority had some form of compound interest and issues with their IT system.

Sayed-Khaiyum says government then came in and made allocations in the budget to pay off their loans.

He says to date government has provided Housing Authority $3.2 million to assist 410 customers in this regard.