Malis­sa Lara

Close to half of the hous­ing units built be­tween 2003-2009 were con­struct­ed in Op­po­si­tion strong­holds. The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) con­struct­ed 6,758 hous­es in ar­eas with heavy Op­po­si­tion sup­port, sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the agency showed. This fig­ure ac­counts for 44 per cent of the 15,394 hous­ing units con­struct­ed by the Gov­ern­ment dur­ing that pe­ri­od. Among the Op­po­si­tion strong­holds where HDC hous­es are con­cen­trat­ed are St Au­gus­tine, Ca­roni Cen­tral and Oropouche East. PNM strong­holds re­ceived al­most the same amount of hous­es–with 6,766 units be­ing con­struct­ed in that area, but topped the list of re­cip­i­ents with eight more hous­es be­ing built in those ar­eas. This fig­ure ac­counts for some 44 per cent of hous­es in area where PNM has sol­id sup­port.

In the ar­eas des­ig­nat­ed as mar­gin­als, based on the last elec­tion re­sults, 1,870 hous­es were con­struct­ed. This ac­counts for 12 per cent of Gov­ern­ment's hous­ing stock. Some of the con­stituen­cies con­sid­ered mar­gin­al are Tu­na­puna, Ma­yaro, Barataria/San Juan, and St Joseph. Op­po­si­tion MPs, mean­while, are claim­ing that the ma­jor­i­ty of hous­es did not go to their con­stituents, and are charg­ing that it's a clear case of vot­er-padding through hous­ing al­lo­ca­tions. Al­though in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies the num­ber of units built were much small­er than those in the PNM and Op­po­si­tion con­stituen­cies, the Op­po­si­tion is claim­ing that on­ly a small num­ber of votes is re­quired to make a dif­fer­ence in favour of the Gov­ern­ment if an elec­tion is called.

The in­for­ma­tion on Gov­ern­ment's hous­ing stock and its lo­ca­tion was sup­plied by the HDC, in re­sponse to a Sun­day Guardian spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion on al­le­ga­tions of vot­er padding. HDC da­ta does not in­clude hous­es built pri­or to 2003, but the agency said these fig­ures were un­ver­i­fied, as an au­dit of its phys­i­cal hous­ing stock was un­der­way. On March 16, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning said HDC's hous­ing ap­pli­ca­tion da­ta-base to­talled 138,000, while on­ly 27,000 hous­es were built. Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion's chair­man Howard Cayenne, in an ad­dress to the na­tion last Sun­day, said the thou­sands of hous­es con­struct­ed con­tributed to a pat­tern of con­stant in­ter­nal mi­gra­tion.

He said this had re­sult­ed in a fail­ure of large num­bers of vot­ers to be prop­er­ly reg­is­tered. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said last week that she feared sup­port­ers might be tak­en from PNM strong­holds and trans­ferred to mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies via gov­ern­ment hous­ing. But on Wednes­day night, HDC's man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jear­lean John, coun­ter­act­ed this, claim­ing there was no vot­er-padding in the cor­po­ra­tion's hous­ing pro­gramme. Be­tween April and June, John said, an es­ti­mat­ed 7,902 ap­pli­cants would be able to move in­to their homes in ar­eas such as Mor­vant, San Fer­nan­do and Cou­va. An­oth­er 3,092 homes would al­so be ready be­tween Ju­ly and De­cem­ber, this year.

Out­siders tak­ing over

Sev­er­al Op­po­si­tion MPs en­dorsed Per­sad-Biss­esar's claims. St Au­gus­tine MP Vas­ant Bharath said he had no doubt vot­er-padding was oc­cur­ring. In St Au­gus­tine, a UNC strong­hold, 1,344 units were de­liv­ered over the last six years. "I don't think there's any doubt in any­body's mind. That is ex­act­ly what it is. That's the in­ten­tion of it." He claims the Gov­ern­ment's plan has been to crowd the mar­gin­al and Op­po­si­tion con­stituen­cies with peo­ple from "out­side" who po­ten­tial­ly can vote for the Gov­ern­ment.

1. In Ca­roni Cen­tral, Hamza Rafeeq's con­stituen­cy, 2,511 units were built. A mem­ber of the con­stituen­cy of­fice said as far as they knew, few mem­bers re­ceived hous­es in the de­vel­op­ments. Res­i­dents told the Sun­day Guardian they felt it was un­fair that they ap­plied for HDC hous­es and did not suc­ceed. They al­so claimed that those who got hous­es in Carlsen Field de­vel­op­ment were strangers to the area.

2. In Oropouche East,1,097 units were built. MP Roodal Mooni­lal said, "The al­lo­ca­tion of those units has re­mained a com­plete mys­tery to me." He said while he was in­vit­ed to turn the sod to be­gin con­struc­tion of the units, he was not in­vit­ed to the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the hous­es. "To my knowl­edge, the per­sons who are there are not con­stituents of mine. No con­stituent of mine who I have rec­om­mend­ed has been priv­i­leged to re­ceive a unit in their own con­stituen­cy. "It leaves a lot of sus­pi­cion for per­sons to in­fer that the al­lo­ca­tions of units are done by some means which may be ir­reg­u­lar and pre­de­ter­mined." He al­so said the Gov­ern­ment had changed its own pol­i­cy in ac­cept­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from MPs, which he said changed when Dr Kei­th Row­ley left the Min­istry of Hous­ing. "While we rec­om­mend per­sons who are de­serv­ing, we are not sure they are con­sid­ered," he said.

Table­land

1. In the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy of Ma­yaro, MP Win­ston Pe­ters said the ma­jor­i­ty of his con­stituents did not re­ceive hous­es. And those who lived in hous­ing de­vel­op­ments were few in num­ber. He said peo­ple who lived in the units were "from all over the place." Asked about al­le­ga­tions of vot­er-padding, he said: "That's pri­mar­i­ly what they are do­ing." He said hous­es were strate­gi­cal­ly-placed so that they could be giv­en to peo­ple who sup­port­ed them. "It ain't have no lot­tery. They giv­ing who ever it is."

Tilt­ing the bal­ance?

In the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies, 1,870 units were con­struct­ed.

Con­stituen­cy No of units

San Fer­nan­do West 275

Barataria/San Juan 130

Ma­yaro 301

Tu­na­puna 287

Ch­agua­nas East 0

Princes Town South/Table­land 93

Pointe-a-Pierre 0

St Joseph 784

To­tal 1,870

Though the num­ber of units built in the mar­gin­als was much small­er in com­par­i­son to Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment "ter­ri­to­ry," Bharath said on­ly a small­er num­ber of votes was re­quired to tilt the bal­ance. He said in some of those mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies, the seats were won by 300 to 400 votes. Votes re­ceived by PNM, UNC and the Con­gress of the Peo­ple(COP), in the Na­tion­al Gen­er­al Elec­tions in 2007 in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies:

Con­stituen­cy PNM UNC COP

Ma­yaro 8,133 8,583 1,936

St Joseph 7,965 4,945 4,145

Pointe-a-Pierre 7,427 6,136 3,740

Barataria/S Juan 7,179 5,358 3,917

Ch­agua­nas East 6,757 4,993 4,086

San­do West 7,371 2,306 4,951

Tu­na­puna 8,468 3,823 4,004

P Town South 7,823 573 3,141

A lot of talk – Gron­lund-Nunez

Tina Gron­lund-Nunez, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Plan­ning and the En­vi­ron­ment, de­nied vot­er-padding al­le­ga­tions. "There's a lot of talk go­ing around," she told the Sun­day Guardian. She said the al­lo­ca­tion sys­tem did not recog­nise con­stituen­cies. Gron­lund-Nunez said ap­pli­cants were re­quired to state where they would like to live. She claimed that what came out in the lot­tery sys­tem was the size of your fam­i­ly and how long you has ap­plied.

Num­ber of hous­es/per­cent­age in PNM, Op­po­si­tion and Mar­gin­al seats:

Op­po­si­tion seats 6,758 44 per cent

PNM seats 6,766 44 per cent

Mar­gin­al seats 1,870 12 per cent