Montague dissatisfied with pace of Trelawny container housing project

BUNKER’S HILL, Trelawny — Minister with responsibility for land, titling and settlement Robert Montague has expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of construction of eight containerised housing units in Bunker’s Hill and other areas of northern Trelawny for families affected by Hurricane Melissa last year. Montague, who has oversight of the Government’s containerised housing solutions for hurricane victims, made the comments on Tuesday while touring a site in Bunker’s Hill with Trelawny Northern Member of Parliament Tova Hamilton. The eight container units will comprise double-unit structures to accommodate larger families.

They form part of a national initiative to provide 2,700 containerised houses for people affected by the hurricane. “I, as a minister, am not pleased with the progress of this project, but I am also heartened by the work that is being done on the field, and also the cooperation of members of the community, because we are all in this together,” Montague said. He acknowledged that the project had encountered difficulties involving contractors and the ministry but said those issues had been addressed, allowing construction to proceed.

According to Montague, frequent afternoon rainfall has also affected the pace of work. “The contractors have assured me that they now have what they want from the ministry, and they are proceeding as fast as they can,” he said. Montague said the Government had to ensure that the project complied with established procedures governing the use of public funds and donations, noting that the scale of the initiative presented new challenges.

“So we are out in the field making sure that the work is going, because we also have to observe the statutory guard rails and governance structures of Government to ensure that the taxpayers’ money and donated funds are properly spent, and therefore these things had to be done, and it has taken some time,” he said. Land tenure and ownership issues had also contributed to delays, as some prospective beneficiaries did not hold titles to the properties on which the units were to be installed. Montague explained that exceptions had been made to accommodate beneficiaries who could not meet conventional land-tenure requirements, given the removable nature of the structures.

“Because these were containerised solutions, we decided to make an exception in these cases where lease land [w…