Government awards contracts to build fourty-one houses

Roseau, Dominica – October 15, 2007……….The impact of the Roosevelt Skerrit Government’s Housing Revolution is continuing to spread with the signing recently of contracts worth $3.2 million to build forty-one(41) houses in Bellevue Chopin and Hillsborough Gardens in St. Joseph.

At an official signing ceremony earlier this month, contracts were signed between the Ministry of Housing, Lands, Telecommunications, Energy and Ports and seven(7) contractors to build eleven(11) houses in Bellevue Chopin and thirty(30) houses at Hillsborough.

According to Chief Technical Officer in the Ministry of Housing, Mr. Lucien Blackmoore, there are two designs: Bungalow type and suspended floor (on columns) type.

The houses will have two bedrooms, kitchen and dining room, living room and washroom facilities. On average there will be 3500 square feet of land on which the houses will be built. It is expected that the houses at Bellevue Chopin will take three months to complete while the houses at Hillsborough will take six months to finish.

Parliamentary Representative for the Petite Savanne Constituency, Hon. Urban Baron expressed his delight that Government was now able to honour a commitment given to the people of Bellevue Chopin in January 2004.

It was on January 5, 2004, on the day before his death that the then Prime Minister, Hon. Pierre Charles gave a commitment to the persons in Bellevue Chopin whose homes had been badly affected by heavy rains a few days earlier that his Government would assist them in a tangible way.

Upon completion the new houses in Bellevue Chopin will be handed over to the families at no cost.

In his address at the signing ceremony, Housing Minister, Hon. Reginald Austrie stated that Government spent in the region of $250,000 to buy the land at Bellevue Chopin and invested a sizeable sum on infrastructure in the form of roads, sidewalks and electricity in that area and basic road infrastructure at Hillsborough Gardens.

It has been revealed that all seven contractors are local and materials for the construction of homes have been purchased locally. A number of people are expected to gain short and medium term employment as a result of the construction of the houses in the two areas. For the 2007/2008 fiscal year, $11.5 million has been allocated for the housing revolution. The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is financing the housing revolution through its ALBA fund, an initiative of Venezuelan President, His Excellency, Hugo Chavez Frias- designed to assist Latin American and Caribbean countries in their social and economic development.