Housing Minister Roodal Moonilal says Government will launch an investigation into the Tobago housing projects and examine the role of the Housing Development Corporation in developing housing on the island.

Speaking to the media yesterday, Moonilal said it has been brought to his attention there is a housing project in Tobago where houses have been built, but these houses were never distributed to homeowners and were now in a state of disrepair.

Moonilal also said he found it an anomaly that the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) which is responsible for the housing construction programme in Trinidad and Tobago, was not part of this project which was under the purview of UDeCOTT and the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).

He said Government was concerned about UDeCOTT's role, "not only in Trinidad but in Tobago because there may be another issue with UDeCOTT's involvement in Tobago that we'll have to look at and these are matters that I intend to clarify with the Chief Secretary and the THA in the coming days".

"We have a matter to investigate now with the housing situation in Tobago because... there is some doubt as to some role of the HDC in Tobago. It is my understanding that UDeCOTT was involved in housing in Tobago in collaboration with the THA and we are looking at that now to see what is the responsibility of the HDC.

"I intend to return to Tobago in a few days to look at the housing in particular as it pertains to our role and I intend to approach the THA and Mr London to discuss it," said Moonilal.

"We have received complaints that the houses are abandoned and in a state of disrepair like in Trinidad, they have not been occupied and we are still researching to look at how much it is costing, how much it has cost the taxpayers," said Moonilal.

"I've also received reports from the Members of Parliament in Tobago that citizens in Tobago have been promised homes in some cases and there were commitments to them to get the homes and I'm investigating a particular report now where we have on paper a situation where homes have been allocated to citizens but when you go to the homes, I'm told, they are all empty, unoccupied and in a state of disrepair, it is something we will look at," said Moonilal.

Asked about provisions for housing in the 2011 National Budget which would be read on Wednesday, Moonilal said Government will not set a particular number of units as the People's National Movement people did.

"You end up pushing and fast tracking and you end up having shoddy work. You end up with corruption, you end up with waste and you have to repair homes for over $100 million now. But having said that, we are going to embark very soon on another construction cycle and we are looking at constructing 6,000 units for the next year," he said.