Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der has de­scribed his ap­point­ment as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing as “very ex­cit­ing.” He joined David Lee, the sub­stan­tive min­is­ter, and Anil Roberts, al­so a min­is­ter in the min­istry, form­ing a three-per­son team to tack­le the coun­try’s hous­ing chal­lenges.

Speak­ing to the me­dia at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, af­ter be­ing sworn in yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said he was on­ly re­cent­ly in­vit­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take up the post. He couldn’t say why his ap­point­ment was de­layed.

Alexan­der ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that the Prime Min­is­ter was “mov­ing pieces on the board” and ul­ti­mate­ly de­cid­ed that Hous­ing was the best fit for him.

“I think that there are more things to come in this Gov­ern­ment and ya’ll would see that, of course, go­ing for­ward. This is one of the moves that she has de­cid­ed is im­por­tant,” he said, adding that ad­dress­ing crime, cost of liv­ing, and hous­ing are top na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties for the Gov­ern­ment.

“We are con­scious that peo­ple have been on a list for decades. We want to get crime down, we need to put more fam­i­lies in homes and this min­istry is the place to do it,” he added.

De­fend­ing the de­ci­sion to ap­point three min­is­ters to the min­istry, Alexan­der said over 100,000 peo­ple are wait­ing for homes in T&T, with some on the list for up to 25 years. He be­lieves the wait­ing list needs ur­gent re­view and re­struc­tur­ing.

Alexan­der couldn’t con­firm whether con­tracts award­ed for con­struc­tion projects would be re-as­sessed, but said Min­is­ter Lee is ex­pect­ed to lead a fact-find­ing mis­sion soon.

“The idea was to get it done, put ca­pa­ble, strong peo­ple to­geth­er and see if we can whit­tle that list down as fast as pos­si­ble with­in the next cou­ple of years,” Alexan­der added.

A prop­er­ty de­vel­op­er by pro­fes­sion, Alexan­der said he will fo­cus on en­sur­ing qual­i­ty in hous­ing go­ing for­ward. The min­istry will as­sess ex­ist­ing hous­ing stocks, in­clud­ing rentals, mort­gages, aban­doned units, and un­fin­ished homes.

Known for his out­spo­ken so­cial me­dia pres­ence, Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged the need to adapt now that he’s in gov­ern­ment.

“I am first and fore­most a team play­er and I am very good at tak­ing my cues from se­niors. I’m fig­ur­ing out her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) tenor, her tone and align­ing my­self with that. There are some things I would like to re­spond to but that is not my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty right now and I have to be mind­ful of that.”

He re­it­er­at­ed his com­mit­ment to ac­count­abil­i­ty but ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the new ad­min­is­tra­tion would avoid scan­dal, say­ing the Prime Min­is­ter has made it clear that mis­con­duct will not be tol­er­at­ed.

He al­so con­firmed that the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) ex­ec­u­tive will meet on Fri­day to de­cide whether to dis­solve the par­ty, now that the elec­tion is over.

“We still are very much con­sid­er­ing that it is the right step. Main­tain­ing two po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ties go­ing in the same di­rec­tion seems su­per­flu­ous at this point,” he said.

Alexan­der dis­missed sug­ges­tions that his ap­point­ment was a po­lit­i­cal re­ward for sup­port­ing the UNC dur­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“No, I wouldn’t say that. I’ve said re­peat­ed­ly, I’ve signed on­to an army and she’s the gen­er­al.”

Dur­ing the cam­paign, UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John pledged the par­ty would de­liv­er 500 homes per week, in re­sponse to for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s promise of 3,000 lots for young peo­ple.

Alexan­der not­ed that many peo­ple re­ceiv­ing state hous­ing could have qual­i­fied in the pri­vate mar­ket more eas­i­ly. He said he, Lee and Roberts, all busi­ness­men, in­tend to make the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) as fi­nan­cial­ly self-suf­fi­cient as pos­si­ble. How­ev­er, he em­pha­sised he has not par­tic­i­pat­ed in any dis­cus­sions about HDC pri­vati­sa­tion.

More­over, he said he will re­main the “fix it man” and is will­ing to serve in any ca­pac­i­ty the Prime Min­is­ter deems fit.