The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

THE government does not consider its Mortgage Relief Plan a failure according to State Minister of Finance Michael Halkitis – despite the fact that it actually helped less than one per cent of the homeowners targeted.

Though admitting the plan was “not as successful” as the government would have liked, Mr Halkitis dismissed criticism that the plan was “merely an election ploy”.

He explained yesterday the government is still working towards providing relief to struggling home-owners.

“The plan has been characterised in some quarters as a failure,” he said. “We do not think so. What we have to do, we have to go back, we have to make some adjustments.”

Last month, Prime Minister Perry Christie admitted he was “disappointed” with the way the Mortgage Relief Plan has panned out – with not a single qualified home-owner receiving assistance.

This week, Mr Christie said four or five families had since taken advantage of the scheme.

When the plan was introduced last September, there were reportedly around 4,000 homeowners in arrears – though Mr Halkitis later said that number has fallen to around 1,000.

The government had allocated $10 million to the plan, which was a key campaign promise listed in its Charter of Governance.

According to The Tribune’s records, as of November 2012, 414 requests for assistance were received with around 139 of them fulfilling the requirements. Another 275 were still being processed.

Mr Halkitis said: “Unfortunately, we were not as successful with the programme, so far”. But, he added, some improvements have “trickled in”.

“Not as many as we would like and so we will go back and we would see where we can improve. The ultimate objective is to make sure people stay in their homes,” Mr Halkitis said.

“The plan has been characterised again in some quarters as some pie in the sky election promise, but the Ministry of Finance, myself, sat down with the Clearing Banks Association of the Bahamas and derived this plan from the figures that were provided to us – we felt that it could work.

“It was a genuine effort to put something into place. I reject those arguments about this being an election ploy; this was a genuine effort.”

Mr Halkitis added: “You’ve only failed when you stop trying. We have not stopped. We made a genuine effort – as it was designed by us and the Clearing Banks – it was not as successful as we liked, so we’ll go back to the drawing board.”

The FNM has been criticial of the plan since it was first announced.

Dr Duane Sands – former FNM senator and former Bahamas Mortgage Corporation chairman branded the plan “bogus from the beginning.”

“It was never intended to be possible to implement this plan,” he said. “This was pure public relations.”

A scathing review of the plan was also issued by a top Wall Street credit rating firm last year.

Moody’s said it believes the programme would undermine efforts to lower the more than $4 billion national debt. It warned that the mortgage relief plan would cost Bahamian taxpayers $250 million to implement.