Investment is up, yet the housing deficit endures. An honest look at whether the NHT’s structure, designed in the 1970s, still fits the Jamaica of today, and how it might evolve.
All eligible NHT contributors can now take their annual refund in cash, ending a split that favoured public sector workers. For would-be buyers, it is a quiet boost toward a deposit.
Each January, hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans reclaim NHT contributions, billions in all. Used toward a deposit, the refund is a quiet but real building block toward ownership.
The Government’s repeated drawdowns from the NHT raise a hard question: should money meant for housing balance the national budget? A look at both sides of a long-running tension.
