Govern­ment prop­er­ties for­mer­ly oc­cu­pied by se­nior pub­lic ser­vants, rang­ing from Port-of-Spain con­dos to hous­es in cen­tral Trinidad and Ma­yaro are be­ing put up for sale, start­ing with the Fed­er­a­tion Park Vil­las.

Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald said it’s part of a Cab­i­net-man­dat­ed dri­ve to put Gov­ern­ment’s port­fo­lio of prop­er­ties in or­der, sell­ing off those which won’t be kept. It is part of a Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem de­vised by the min­istry which al­so tracks per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and oth­er se­nior pub­lic ser­vants who are about to re­tire so that no­tice can be sent to them to va­cate any gov­ern­ment premis­es they might be oc­cu­py­ing.

The ex­er­cise be­gan last Thurs­day when the min­istry ad­ver­tised for sale 12 vil­las at Ja­maica Boule­vard, Fed­er­a­tion Park. Bids were in­vit­ed for units on an “as is, where is” ba­sis. The of­fer is lim­it­ed to T&T cit­i­zens and fa­cil­i­tates a lease­hold in­ter­est of 99 years for each unit. The es­ti­mat­ed price is ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.3 mil­lion each.

Mc­Don­ald said rais­ing rev­enue isn’t the ob­jec­tive of cur­rent and up­com­ing sales.

“The Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry is the land­lord of Gov­ern­ment prop­er­ties all over Trinidad and To­ba­go from north to cen­tral and Ma­yaro and down the Is­lands,” she said.

She es­ti­mat­ed the val­ue of Gov­ern­ment’s prop­er­ty stock at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $336 mil­lion.

“We’ve been do­ing as­sess­ments of vil­las and gov­ern­ment quar­ters since last year, in­clud­ing in a bid to deal with il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion,” Ms Don­ald ex­plained.

“Many prop­er­ties have been lan­guish­ing and it’s time peo­ple re­alise some­one—Gov­ern­ment—owns these prop­er­ties.”

The min­is­ter point­ed out that it wasn’t low­er-in­come peo­ple in some prop­er­ties but peo­ple who got free hous­ing due to their po­si­tion and they had nev­er va­cat­ed those premis­es.

The min­istry’s ex­er­cise re­vealed some in­stances where peo­ple had lived at units and were de­ceased but their rel­a­tives were still on site.

“De­ci­sions have to be made on what will be re­fur­bished or sold since we’re re­new­ing the prop­er­ty stock,” she said.

Old stock, some of which were once oc­cu­pied by pub­lic ser­vants or oth­er of­fi­cials, may be head­ed for the mar­ket­place and new­er stock, such as the Vic­to­ria Keys units in Diego Mar­tin and oth­ers, are be­ing re­tained.

Gov­ern­ment is re­tain­ing a few units at some de­vel­op­ments, such as Fed­er­a­tion Vil­las, which will be used to house con­sul­tants, vis­it­ing per­son­nel or oth­er of­fi­cials.

Mc­Don­ald said the sale dri­ve is be­ing start­ed with prop­er­ties in Port-of-Spain and west Trinidad. Next on the list of sales is like­ly to be cer­tain Flagstaff units which are now un­oc­cu­pied. Mc­Don­ald ad­mit­ted there had been chal­lenges with some ten­ants in that lo­ca­tion but de­clined to give fur­ther de­tails.

How­ev­er, checks with oth­er of­fi­cials re­vealed in­stances where some oc­cu­piers had de­layed in re­lo­cat­ing. This in­clud­ed a for­mer se­nior pub­lic ser­vant who had oc­cu­pied one unit for 10 years af­ter re­tire­ment, had pos­ses­sion there but lived at the lo­ca­tion at “sea­son­al times”. He moved out a few weeks ago af­ter dis­cus­sions were held with him, it was con­firmed.

Mc­Don­ald said some of Gov­ern­ment’s oth­er prop­er­ties around T&T are oc­cu­pied.

“I sus­pect the pol­i­cy will be to of­fer it—first pref­er­ence—to those who are in oc­cu­pan­cy cur­rent­ly and this will be at mar­ket val­ue,” she said.

Mc­Don­ald said since the Fed­er­a­tion Vil­las ad emerged, the Min­istry had been del­uged with ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est.