00:00The Shafford Court development has long been plagued by complaints over deteriorating infrastructure, unreliable water supply and fires.
00:09Now, Minister in the Ministry of Housing, Philip Alexander, says authorities have uncovered what he describes as sabotage.
00:16We found out today that the pumps were being sabotaged by drug addicts that were taken over this agency management
00:25office that has been condemned and was supposed to be demolished.
00:28When TV6 visited the area, residents claimed the building had previously been occupied by homeless people before being taken over
00:37by Venezuelan nationals.
00:39The minister says the illegal occupation has made it difficult to permanently resolve the community's water issues.
00:45The proper pump will happen when they stop sabotaging the pump. That's what was going on.
00:52We were here before today with the pumps, we were here again.
00:54The reason we're here now is because the sprangers, they were, correct, so right, so that have to go for
01:03that to fix.
01:04Alexander says the ministry intends to secure the building and move quickly to have it demolished.
01:09The building, we're going to make it uninhabitable. Today, we put all, the HTC has put all of the people
01:17who are not supposed to occupy it out of the building today and they're taking apart the internals and then
01:23we're going to be moving towards getting it demolished in quick time.
01:27He also warned residents against using HTC common areas for private business, saying the practice has created safety concerns and
01:36inconvenience of the tenants.
01:37Certain people that were using the compound as a garage to repair vehicles and as I said, there's a lot
01:44of elderly people that can't stand up for themselves and they all came to us and we'll be back here
01:49today and we put the repair people on notice that the garage is closed so they have until Friday to
01:55move their vehicles.
01:57Failing which, the HTC will move the vehicles. I mean, this is an HTC property.
02:02The housing ministry says it will continue working to address long-standing issues at Shafford Court while ensuring the HTC
02:10regulations are enforced.
02:12Orvishita Wari-Rubnarain, TV6 News.
Comments