Lisa Hanna Calls Out the NHT for “shocking” Shady Business in New Video

Lisa Hanna has called out the National Housing Trust (NHT) for the organisation’s inadequate handling of funds collected from contributors and its failure to fulfil its mandate to build homes for Jamaicans.

The NHT was founded in 1976 by the then-Michael Manley-led government to lend money at low interest rates to contributors to provide Jamaicans with affordable housing. In her statement released via social media on Wednesday, Hanna expressed that Manley’s idea was brilliant, but almost 50 years later, data suggests that the organisation is inefficient and ineffective.

Hanna then went on to share what she described as “shocking” statistical figures and said that the NHT collected JM$43.061 billion in income and spent JM$12.946 billion in operating expenses.

“These figures are shocking, and when I saw them, it blew my mind, as the average number of housing completions by the National Housing Trust from 2018 to 2022 is 2157 per annum,” Hanna stated.

Hanna further explained the surprising contrast between the amount of funds collected by the NHT from employed Jamaican contributors and the number of houses built. She also highlighted that the organisation is delivering an exceptionally low number of completed houses despite maintaining a high surplus.

“When you look at the NHT’s accounts, they generated a surplus of $21.8 billion for the financial year 2023/2024. Now with an employed labour force in Jamaica of about 1.27 million, the NHT is delivering less than 0.18% of houses or housing completions for our working population. So the truth is, instead of building houses for people, the NHT is actually taking a percentage of workers’ and employers’ salaries to build cash in the bank,” Hana said.

She went on to criticise the organisation’s poor handling of the labour force’s contributions while issuing out large paydays for its executive staff.

“… These small, unimpressive deliverable statistics come with NHT executives making substantial salaries. Over 13 of their executives are earning above $16,000,000 in annual salaries. The managing director is earning $34.2 million, the finance director $22 million, the construction and development director $21.6 million,” Hanna shared.

She further criticised the NHT for acting like a commercial bank and continuously failing to fulfil their mandate as well as failing the Jamaican people.

Listen to Hanna’s full statement below.

According to the Ministry of Finance, for the financial year ending 2024, the NHT collected JM$43.061 billion in income and spent JM$12.946 billion in operating expenses.

These figures are shocking as the average number of housing completions by the NHT from 2018 to 2022 is… pic.twitter.com/UyFuOdJ3fD

— Lisa Hanna (@LisaHannamp) November 20, 2024

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