A house of cards?
IT WAS no surprise to see the deputies behind a requete to push the development of a States committee dedicated to housing take the opportunity to jump on a bandwagon of public disquiet at the Environment & Infrastructure Committee’s bid to derail them.
All three committees with a stake in housing have opposed the creation of a Housing Committee. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? And as much as it’s been said that the requete is not a vote of no confidence in those committees, it clearly is, on their housing remit at least.
They’re being accused of complete failure. Clearly worried, E&I has asked the States to back it rather than sack it and give it the extra resources it says it needs to accelerate housing projects. Yet it doesn’t seem likely that any of these will be building any houses any time soon.
The requerants have leapt on the public disquiet for the push for six dedicated officers. And why wouldn’t they? It’s a tone-deaf request from a committee which has also concluded a long-winded recruitment process, spending nearly six figures a year to pay for a head of on-island travel and transport implementation, with plenty of doubt that it will make islanders’ lives any better.
It’s this kind of thinking, and spending, that is the concern of most about the introduction of a GST – that the public sector will continue an inexorable push to become the island’s dominant employer with no benefit for those paying for them.