Grenada Today - The National Newspaper of Grenada, Carriacou & Petite Martinique

The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is trying to whip up national support to force the ruling New National Party (NNP) government to move more quickly on helping to tackle the housing problem on the island after the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan in September.

The party, led by barrister-at-law, Tillman Thomas held a massive public meeting Sunday at La Tante in St. David's to launch its housing campaign against the NNP regime of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell.

Hundreds of placard bearing Congress supporters turned out at the "national rally" called by the party to protest against the deplorable housing problem in the country.

One placard read: "No Stadium without Housing" in reference to government's plans for the reconstruction of the collapsed multi-million dollar national sports stadium at Queen's Park in St. George's. "Ah Go rent a room in the stadium", said another of the placard from a member of the crowd.

The Mitchell government has announced plans to rebuild the stadium with assistance from Mainland China (People's Republic of China). A number of speakers told the large gathering that the Congress will not let up in its efforts to force the Mitchell government to pay special attention to the housing situation in the country.

The housing issue was addressed by Parliamentary Representative for St. George's South constituency, Glynis Roberts. "What is so distressful is that (those of) us in authority sometimes cannot relate to the struggles that the ordinary man is going through because some of us are in our comfort zone", she told the gathering.

"Imagine after about 2 months in the aftermath of the hurricane, the Prime Minister got 2 brand new big black vans. To date 4 months after Ivan not even 2 wooden houses were constructed in Cafe Beau Hill in Grand Anse where most of the houses went down", she said.

Roberts did a brief calculation for the crowd of how many houses could have been built for home owners in distress instead of purchasing the luxury vehicles for the Prime Minister. "From my inquiry, with the cost of this 2 black vans we could have constructed 35 houses to the benefit of 100 persons...", she said. The NDC believes that the housing situation has reached crisis proportions within the past five months.

The party has embarked upon a campaign to collect hundreds of signatures for a housing motion to deliver today (Friday) to Housing Minister Yolande Bain-Joseph. The NDC is hopeful that this move will bring to the fore the plight of hundreds of home owners in Grenada in the aftermath of hurricane Ivan.

The island's main opposition party said that the situation facing Grenadian families is not improving and called for housing situation to be more aggressively addressed by the administration. NDC supporters are expected to gather at 3.00 p.m Friday outside the Grenada Postal Corporation (GPC) at Burns Point on Port Highway where they will march in single file to the Ministry of Housing located next to the Financial Complex building on the Carenage to present the motion to Minister Joseph.

The opposition party has been taking government to task for putting emphasis on rebuilding the cricket stadium for the 2007 Cricket World Cup scheduled for the Caribbean and not moving quickly enough on housing for the people.

A recent report by some British engineers from Arup Associates had determined that poor workmanship was responsible for the collapse of the multi-millon sporting facility at Queen's Park. Government has announced plans to build two thousand (2000) new houses with assistance from Mainland China.

It also disclosed that a $5000.00 housing grant will be made available to persons who lost their roofs or homes as a result of the hurricane. In addition, the Mitchell government has constantly made reference to several ongoing initiatives involving the Housing Authority of Grenada (HAG) including a $40,000.00 loan scheme for low income earners.