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Regretfully your journalist James Debono chose last Sunday to give a misleading story about the Housing Authority even though he was in the possession of facts which show a different picture. We even spoke to him on three different occasions (twice myself) and I am surprised that both the headline and the story as presented could still be so biased.
The Housing Authority builds an average of 200 homes a year, some for rent, but most for sale. The flats for rent are finished except for bathrooms. We don't put in bathrooms because past experience has shown us that even the poorest of the poor don't want bathrooms that we choose for them, but prefer to fit their own and we give them a grant to do so. In the past we used to find bathrooms ripped out!
The flats for sale were in the past offered at around 33 per cent off the price (now replaced by shared ownership). Your journalist chose to doubt this with the figures he presented, yet he was quoting a flat price with a garage (which is something optional you can buy with no subsidy) while we gave him what he asked for, the commercial price and the subsidised price.
When this Board started its work flats were being sold on plan. Now they are sold almost ready when people apply, but very often services still have to be installed. I would like to stress that nobody needs to pay rent and the home loan at the same time as the banks will freeze the loan until residents can move in. I gave the journalist this information (which is important for the public to know) but perhaps in the interest of keeping his story biased he left that out.
Another point is that I as chairman made the decision a few years ago to voluntarily submit all our projects for the approval of the Disability Commission, even though there was no legal obligation to do so. This means that after the project is ready, if there is any small defect, such as the angle of a ramp MEPA can not issue the compliance certificate. We do this to do our little bit to increase the stock of available and accessible homes in this country. It can produce delays sometimes but to headline your story in that way was a little unfair, especially as you phoned us for facts, and then chose not to include them, presumably to add spice to a non-story?
Marisa Micallef
Chairman,
Housing Authority
Floriana
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