The People’s National Party (PNP) will stop the annual withdrawal of $11.4 billion from the National Housing Trust (NHT) for budgetary support and will redirect those funds to be used to make houses up to $3 million cheaper for contributors.
That will happen whenever the PNP returns to power.
Opposition Leader Mark Golding gave the commitment as he addressed the matter of affordable home ownership on Tuesday during his contribution to the 2025/26 Budget Debate.
“This was a four-year fiscal measure in the hardest of times during a tough International Monetary Fund programme,” Golding said.
“It was never our intention that it would go beyond 2017. But this government, having criticised it so trenchantly when they were in Opposition, even supporting an unsuccessful lawsuit to challenge it, then turned around and extended it by an additional eight years since 2017, including once again in this budget for 2025/26,” he added.
“We will end this annual extraction of resources from the NHT and recapitalise the NHT with lands to restore value for the $136.8 billion that has been taken from it to fund the successive budgets over the past 12 years. We will also repurpose the NHT and have it focus on its core mandate of providing affordable housing to contributors,” said the Opposition leader.
He explained that by using this recapitalisation mechanism, the PNP would exclude the cost of the land from the price of houses built by the NHT over the next five years and pass through a reduction of between $2.5 million and $3 million to contributors purchasing those homes.
“That is social and economic justice for the contributors whose institution has been depleted of resources to ease the fiscal burden on the country. Teachers, nurses, police officers and other public servants, young professionals, persons with disabilities and indeed any individual contributing to the NHT will be able to own their homes,” said Golding.
Speaking directly to public sector employees, he said, “the PNP knows that public sector workers are hurting from the way in which the pay rationalisation was done, so we have come up with these measures to show our appreciation for your service to the nation”.
He also outlined that the NHT will create a “special package of benefits for public servants, young people and low wage earners”.
And Golding pointed out that public sector workers previously enjoyed a preferred interest rate on their NHT loans but said “this government took it away”.
“We will restore public sector workers’ access to a reduction in their NHT interest rates, reducing their interest rates by one per cent, depending on their income band,” Golding promised, while declaring that “police, nurses, teachers, doctors, firefighters and all other public servants will get back this benefit”.
