Ambika Jagassarsingh
With the new cashless initiative adopted by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), the Housing and Development Minister is hoping this will encourage delinquent home owners to pay their balances.
At the launch of the new “More Ways to Pay” initiative by HDC at Government Plaza yesterday, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Camille Robinson-Regis, said this new method allows more convenience to citizens, wherever they may live in T&T.
The minister also appealed to those who owed the company to take advantage of the convenience of the online payments and pay their debts.
She said, “Please utilise these additional options to honour your legal obligations to pay HDC, your mortgage and rental arrangements opposes on you a legal obligation.”
She said if people fail to honour their payments, HDC can take legal action against them.
“I urge homeowners and delinquent homeowners to come into the HDC and begin your conversation about your arrears. During the height of the pandemic, this Government demonstrated its care by allowing homeowners who might have either lost their jobs or had their monthly incomes reduced to come into the HDC and make certain arrangements. We are therefore not aversed to listening and meeting you halfway, but you must meet us along the way as well or face what may be inevitable,” Robinson-Regis said.
Through the organisation’s partnership with Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (TTIFC) and the Telecommunication Services of Trinidad and Tobago, HDC homeowners can now conduct all their rent and mortgage transactions completely online.
“By introducing these additional ways for clients to honour their obligations, the HDC is clearly seeking to relieve itself of the burden of cash collection ...Our objective therefore is to ensure that there are numerous options being provided, to our clients on a phased basis in order for them to honour their legal obligations to the HDC. It is intended to remove every hassle, every inconvenience, every impediment to clients who sincerely want to pay their debts to the HDC.”
She added that multiple payment options were available, which makes it more inclusive for everyone.
She said: “This new online platform was developed by TSTT and is integrated by payment service providers such as PayPal, Pay wise, Google Wallet, Apple Pay and other payment solutions.”
Robinson-Regis stated this initiative by the HDC is the first of its kind for the Government, however, it will not be the last of it.
“It signals this government’s intention to get on with the business of digitalisation and becoming a cashless economy. Increasingly, you will be seeing more and more state organisations following the path being set by the HDC.”
Robinson-Regis also added that her ministry was in the process of removing all their debts, with the allocations promised in the 2022/2023 Budgetary allocations.
“The Minister of Finance did indicate we would have access to a government guaranteed loan in the amount of $1.5 billion and in fact we were able to access $500 million of that loan, and we’re anticipating that we’ll be able to access the remaining $1 billion by the end of this month,” she said.
She said once these funds are received, most of their debts will be paid off in its entirety.
“With that $500 million, we were able to restart several projects that had stalled and in order to do that we had paid out the amount of $176,095,783.73, we also paid numerous contractors that we owed and we paid out the amount of $336,285,759.62...we are still owing contractors for some existing projects and we are owing some service providers but we are in the process of getting in that $1 billion with that, we’ll make as many payments as possible,” she noted.
Managing director of the HDC, Jayselle McFarlane, said there were many options citizens can honour their payments through, such as the HDC Outreach Project, NLCB and WIPAY, expanding online banking options, credit card payments and HDC Caravans. One other method will be the HDC app which will be launched in June 2023.
She added that as a state agency, “The HDC cannot continue to rely solely on Government subventions to execute its many programmes. As we deliver to deserving applicants on the one hand, we expect...the deserving applicants will do the right thing and honour their obligations to the HDC.”
TSTT’s chief executive officer, Lisa Agard, also stated that this initiative could transcend other government agencies in the future.
“This solution has the potential to make it easy to pay for any government service. TTEC, Board of Inland Revenue, WASA and others. All while providing top-notch fraud protection and reconciliation.”
The HDC is now the first Government corporation to fully offer cashless payment options for HDC homeowners in the country.