THE Government will provide the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) with a total of $1.5 billion to allow the corporation to "refocus on its mandate to construct affordable housing."
Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced this on Monday duringthe 2022-3 budget presentation in Parliament.
Imbert said, "There is no doubt that the pace of public housing construction is insufficient to reduce the size of our application base, which has been increasing."
He said there are currently 191,000 applicants, adding that the HDC has "built-in inefficiencies and it cannot continue with business as usual."
He said the government will provide "significant financial resources" to the HDC via three government-guaranteed loans.
He said $500 million will be used to complete stalled or existing projects, another $500 million to pay debts owed to contractors and suppliers, and $500 million for constructing new housing units.
