By Latrishka Thomas
In the course of yesterday’s Parliamentary sitting, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that the owners or landlords of properties rented by the government should be held responsible for their upkeep.
“I believe that it is incumbent upon us to call upon these individuals — these landlords who rent these properties to the government — to repair their properties and if they fail to do so we should give them notice and vacate those properties,” Browne said.
But he made it clear that the government does not wish to destroy the large market that benefits from said tenancy.
“Because, you see, many of these properties, the government would have paid for these several times over and it’s not that we are not in a position to build new properties and to move out of these private properties, but we recognise that many of them are dependent on the rent and that they too have other businesses and the rent helps to subsidize those other businesses,” he said.
Browne’s response was in relation to a concern raised by the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, Jamale Pringle.
Pringle made a fresh appeal for the government to address the poor conditions that exist in his Market Street office.
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