Gov’t allocates initial $3.4 million to Land Bank initiative

The Andrew Fahie administration is keeping true to an election promise by making its first cash injection into its Land Bank initiative.

Premier Fahie, who is also Minister for Finance, made that announcement during the recent budget debate inside the House of Assembly.

He said: “Your government has made an initial allocation of $3.4 million towards the Land Bank initiative that I have been discussing over the past months.”

“One of the primary goals of this initiative is to make affordable housing a reality for our people,” Fahie added.

Long-time coming

The Premier did not divulge any further information on the initiative. But while on the campaign trail back in January, Fahie described the initiative as an avenue he would use to provide young persons with cheaper ways to purchase land and to build their homes.

He said at the time that, if his Virgin Islands Party wins the February 25 election, he would create a land bank and tie it to a community project.

“We are going to buy land in every district because right now young people don’t care if the fire truck pass or the ambulance pass. They don’t look because they don’t have anything at stake…they can’t afford land,” he said during a public meeting in Huntums Ghut.

Fahie had further explained: “What we are going to do is that when you pay your deposit which would be an agreed amount if you cannot pay the balance of it, you will enrol in a government-approved community project or programme and the hours you spend in them will be credited towards the balance that you owe for the land.”

Notably, the land bank initiative was a promise that was never fulfilled by the ousted National Democratic Party administration who spent the last two terms as government.