Madam Speaker, I presume that my hon. colleague is referring to the construction project of 750 housing units being undertaken by the New Social Living Development (NSLD) at Coromandel. I am informed by the NSLD that 70% of the on-site construction works, housing units and on-site infrastructure have been completed. These works are expected to be completed by the end of June 2025. As regards part (a) of the question, the main criteria to benefit from social housing units are as follows – (i) the monthly household income of the applicant should not exceed Rs40,000; (ii) the applicant should not be the owner of housing units or residential plot of land; and (iii) the applicant should not have benefitted from any government grant for the casting of roof slabs and for the purchase of building materials. Madam Speaker, with regard to part (b), the applicant will be called for interview 2 to 3 months prior to the completion of the project. However, allow me to halt at this stage to underline the following: there is a misconception among the members of the public believing that calling them for the interview means that they have been granted the right to a house. No. I would like to underline that calling them for an interview does not guarantee the obtention

73 of the house. It is only to assess the eligibility of each applicant, and that is the purpose of the interview. In regard to part (c), the 750 housing units at Coromandel will be allocated as follows –  100 units for families living in Constituency No. 1  50 units for families living in Constituency No. 2  200 units for families living in Constituency No. 19  400 units for families living in Constituency No. 20 Those are my answers, and if the hon. Members require any additional information, I shall be glad to oblige.

Yes.

Madame la présidente, peut-on savoir de l’honorable ministre, en ce qui concerne les futurs acquéreurs, s'il y aura plusieurs catégories ? Je veux dire en fonction des différents critères de sélection, de remboursement et de revenus, bien sûr.

I think this is a very important question that needs, in fact, an answer. There are two ways of proceeding. I could proceed by tabling the criteria for allocation of NSLD housing units, which I will; I believe it is important for it to be a public document, and I will just briefly say that over and above the fact that I talked about 40,000 income, the date of application, of course, is of utmost importance. I have found through my research at the level of the Ministry that it was not obviously the Ministry that carried out the whole idea of allocation of houses; it is either the NHDC or the NSLD and committees therein. I am convinced that there has been misuse of power. I am convinced there have been people who have listened to orders coming from some sort of kitchen to decide not which cook is going to go therein but who is going to be living where and when and in what type of house. This is basically, our lives and the lives of citizens of this country were dictated from beginning to end by someone in charge of this kitchen. So, in order to put some order in the kitchen, I would like to blow up the kitchen and start afresh, but then again, the people did it for us; they blew it up. So now, household type and composition – that also is a criterion. A couple with dependants earns 10 marks – there is a marking system. Hon. Osman Mahomed, now Minister, at one point in time he was at the NHDC, if I am not mistaken; he was also one of those responsible for the setting up of these criteria, as well as hon. Bashir Khodabux at one point in time, but those are legacies that were left.

74 Unfortunately, some people have found ways and means of going round the excellent work they have done in order to give houses, and the condition of obtaining houses was how much of a nice person you are, holding up the drapeau of certain people, but this is not what we are about. So, criteria are very important, and we are not going to be choosing based on political appurtenance, on where you are, who you are, what you are and how close you are. It is criteria, and it is going to be rule-based. So, I can assure the hon. Member of that. Catchment area is obviously important because, as I have said, some people come from certain constituencies; therefore, where you live, where you come from, is also a very important criterion. Then you have criteria for allocation to hardship cases; I have had the opportunity of speaking with my learned colleague Minister Ashok Subron, whereby he has intimated his wish to be more helpful and grant more help to the needy, victims of fire, cyclones, floods, natural disasters, domestic violence, single parents with dependents, and persons with severe medical conditions and impairments. My hon. friend, Minister Subron, has spoken to me about that. So, I can assure the hon. Member, the House, and those listening to us, Madam Speaker, that we will be rule-based and there will be no favouritism and discrimination. Allow me to add, however, that if there are delays, it is because offsite works have not been completed because the then Government created a company called DICL. It gave the responsibility to DICL to carry out drain works all around the island, around NSLD projects. And I can say that they have not been functioning very well. We have had very urgent meetings chaired by the Senior Chief Executive of my ministry with DICL and the officers in order to ensure… Yes, I know the problematic, but then again, it is not the responsibility of the present Minister to have started last year. When the project started, they should have started then. So, it is through the incompetence of the then Government and the minister in charge; I cannot remember his name, the then Bobby, or some name of that nature. I cannot remember whether it was him, but through incompetence, he did not start it. And the hon. Member will remember, if I am not mistaken, he himself a déjà croisé le fer with those incompetents. Thank you.

75

Thank you. Yes, he has not finished.

Une chose qu’on a souvent tendance à oublier, c’est qu’avec les pluies torrentielles et les inondations récurrentes, l’honorable ministre peut-il nous dire si les constructeurs ont prévu un système de drain afin d’évacuer l’eau, évitant ainsi que les appartements au rez-de-chaussée soient inondés comme c’est le cas au complexe de Vétiver à Petite Rivière ?

I can assure the hon. Member that as an example that I can give, only yesterday I had the pleasure of going to a site visit in Constituency No. 1 with hon. Minister Arianne Navarre-Marie who is here, and hon. Fabrice David, who is also together with me. We went for a visit in Constituency No. 1, and there we have been very careful to note little issues – little issues which, in fact, are very important – drain works, and we found that all of them have made provision, but I come back to DICL. DICL is given the task of completing offsite works, precisely in order to ensure that those projects are not flooded, and this is very important, but unfortunately, there are projects for which the houses are ready, but I will not be able to deliver; at least NSLD will not be able to deliver to beneficiaries, and you will find that there will be dégradation of the quality of material because you are closing the houses. We have to wait for the offsite drain works to be completed because we do not want such situations to occur where people are flooded in, but those are issues high on the agenda, and we are working closely with the new Minister of National Infrastructure and all my colleagues in Cabinet. We are also being helped by Members of Parliament, backbenchers who are giving us a lot of information and assistance to ensure that we give a better product to the beneficiaries. And let me hasten to add that they have not even considered the possibility of adding solar panels on the roof in order to provide for hot water. They have not even considered rainwater harvesting when we are talking about the age of climate change and the need to have an environmentally sustainable construction. They have thought very fast but have been incompetent in the end result.

Thank you, Minister.

Madame la présidente, dernière question !

76

Allez-y, il me reste…

Rapidement. Peut-on savoir de l’honorable ministre quelles sont les infrastructures sociales et de loisir qui ont été prévues pour les…

Non, non, non ! Je ne peux pas vous laisser, parce que ça, c’est nouveau. Une nouvelle question sera bien pour la semaine prochaine.

I will share it with you.

Okay.

Non, parce que ça c’est nouveau. Quand même. Allez-y !

Non, c’est par rapport au contexte de…

Mais, on peut parler de tout si on veut ! Allez-y, Monsieur, après !

Oui, Madame la présidente. J’aimerais demander à M. le ministre que beaucoup de personnes se sont plaintes qu’elles sont sur une liste d’attente depuis plus de 20 ans, une dizaine, vingtaine d’années, et que, lorsqu’ils appellent ou ils rendent visite au bureau de la NHDC, ils se plaignent de dossiers perdus. Can the Minister please put up a campaign or a fast track campaign afin de réactualiser les dossiers des demandeurs en vue du processus d’allocation des logements sociaux ?

Even though, Madam Speaker, it does not really… but it is within the ambit if I may help. I do not want to adopt such a fast track that we have unfortunately as hon. Ms Stéphanie Anquetil has said. We have what we have had where people are at Cimetière St Jean with the fast track. So, we do not want that. We want to sort out the problem, and the issue is that, with the new government and the new direction at the level of both the NHDC and the NSLD, what we are ensuring to do is that there is a proper customer service, that we ensure that those criteria are adhered to, but that there is an efficient communication between the end user and the builders; the promoters. So, this is what we need to do, because a lot of the times, I totally agree with you, I end up being the one answering at least hundreds of calls a day, which is happening to my home. And just to add it up, I tested the customer service at the NHDC last year as soon as I took office and I pretended to be someone from Curepipe and I waited for 20 minutes and I still

77 did not get the answer. So, in other words, in the first week, I can assure you that those issues have been attended to and I am very thankful to the officers of the NHDC, NSLD and the Ministry for really helping to improve service and I am sure that we will be successful.

Yes?

Merci, Madame la présidente. M. le ministre, en parlant des critères d’éligibilité, plusieurs familles sont dans l’attente depuis des lustres, nous le savons tous. Qu’en est-il de ceux qui ont déjà atteint l’âge de la retraite, voire 60 ans + ? Est-ce qu’ils devront attendre longtemps ? Est-ce qu’un jour, ils pourront devenir propriétaires d’une maison de la NHDC et est-ce qu’il y aura aussi une attention particulière ? Je vous attends, merci.

I thank the hon. Member for the question. I have had the opportunity of meeting MauBank, one of the financing institutions, precisely for many other cases that were finding some difficulties, but precisely for old-age pensioners who have been on the list for many years, and they were saying that they could not consider that they were eligible for a loan because of their age. So, we have tried to find solutions together, and one of the solutions would be that one of the relatives, a child, would be guaranteeing the loan and take on that responsibility. Grosso modo we are finding solutions, and I do agree with the hon. Member that many people have waited, not only old-age pensioners. You have a lot of single mothers; you have a lot of mothers who are divorced with children who need to find a home to live in and do not want to continuously be paying rent, and they want to become homeowners. We have more than 40,000 applications. The previous government had said that they were delivering 6,000 houses before the end of their mandate in 2024. That was a lie. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Hon. Juman, First Member for Port Louis Maritime and Port Louis East. STATE LAND – PAS GEOMETRIQUES – LESSEES & LEASING FEES