GOVERNMENT PLANS to step up its efforts to transform housing conditions in tenantries across St Michael.

Prime Minister Owen Arthur, in outlining the plan on Sunday night during a nomination meeting for the St Michael Central constituency held at the O'Level Institute, said the Urban Development Commission (UDC) would be playing a crucial role in achieving the target.

In what he termed "the naked ugly face of proverty" which has been concentrated largely in urban St Michael, Arthur pointed out that those living in these districts had been unable to carry out the necessary improvement to their properties as had been happening elsewhere.

The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) leader said it was untrue for the party's critics to say that it was prohibiting people from owning a "piece of this rock", pointing to those benefiting under the Tenantry Freehold Purchase legislation which allowed them to buy subsidising land at ten cents a square foot.

He said all across St Michael a set of tenants lived in squalid conditions, unable to improve their living conditions because prior to his administration they were denied that right to buy the land on which they lived. However, as part of the BLP's programme for urban rehabilitation and renewal they would be given the opportunity to buy the land, having to pay no more than $2.50 a square foot with Government subsidising the purchase up to a maximum of $7.50 a square foot. He said this was a unique situation which did not occur in any other state in the Caribbean or Western Hemisphere.

Arthur said they were 2 807 people living in tenantries in St Michael who stood to benefit under the programme and to date 605 had bought land under the special arrangements. He pointed out that the increased subvention given the UDC this year was with the understanding that the largest portion of it would go towards this land transfer programme.

"I want the people at the UDC; I want the Deputy Prime Minister (under whose portfolio it falls) and Sir Henry Forde (chairman) to understand the strategic significance of this initiative," Arthur said, adding that those who stood to benefit must reap the benefits to help transform the society.