By ROGAN M. SMITH, Guardian Senior Reporter

The Bahamas' housing market is on the brink of an economic meltdown, according to the president of the Bahamian Contractors Association, Stephen Wrinkle, who warns that The Bahamas could be following in the United States' footsteps with its housing crunch.

"Mark my words, it's coming. The poor homeowner has no means of making any more money and they entered into their mortgages with the premise that things would remain relatively stable," he said.

"What's happened is the opposite. It's a recipe for disaster and if people don't take their heads out of the sand and see what's coming, there is going to be an economic meltdown in this country."

Wrinkle estimates that the unemployment rate in the sector is hovering at 20 percent. According to him, many contractors and workers have been waiting for the government to green light a number of anchor projects.

"At the moment, things are soft. The sector is very soft and work is slow. Most of the contractors have maybe one job. But, the jobs are nothing significant and everybody is just hanging on. There are no major projects moving forward at a significant rate to absorb the number of contractors that we have in the industry," he said.

Wrinkle further estimated that there are about 600-700 contractors in New Providence, with a total of 1,000 in the entire country, and these contractors have crews working under them.

"Without any government housing projects and no substantial government infrastructural projects or civil works, there's a void. The slack has not been picked up by private subdivision development," he said.

"Even though people may have intentions of building on their lot, with the economic slump and the difficulty in qualifying for financing for bank loans, a lot of people are just sitting on the lots and not moving forward with construction," he pointed out.

When asked whether contractors have been forced to close operations due to the bad economy, Wrinkle said, "not as far as I know."

"But, that doesn't mean that it hasn't happened or that it's not going to happen. The contractors that can diversify and do other stuff have been doing it. What's happening is instead of having three and four jobs, the contractor ends up with one job. And it makes it difficult for them to make money, because they can't spread their overhead," he said.

Wrinkle said the government, which is the largest employer in the construction industry, needs to step forward and begin some of its projects.

"The government needs to start its projects, particularly in the housing sector, which is the key to success in the construction sector. That's the bar that we measure the sector by, because each home employs several different trades and so the trickle down is more diversified and has more impact," he said.

"In any given house, you'll have masons, carpenters, plumbers, sheet rock, tiler layers and painters. So, even though the contract amount is not huge, you're employing a huge amount of people and the cash goes into the economy every Friday afternoon. That's what caused the United States to crash. When they quit building the houses, everything fell apart."

One positive development for the sector, however, occurred when the Nassau Airport Development (NAD) company recently placed a contractors briefing advertisement in one of the daily newspapers, inviting interested contractors and suppliers to review impending expansion plans next month.

"I'm sure it will be well-attended. How many people actually get work out there is a different thing. They can only hire so many contractors. The work is going to get started, however, and that is one of the more significant projects, if not the most significant project that we're going to have," Wrinkle said.

He added that the BCA is looking forward to meeting with NAD and attending the briefing to get a better understanding of how much work is going to be out there for Bahamian contractors.

"It will be significant, there's no doubt about that and they've already employed a large number of Bahamians out there, to do remedial work to the existing terminals," he said.

Former Prime Minister and Farm Road and Centreville MP Perry Christie on Monday asked Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham whether or not the government had plans to continue with the airport development project, given the slowdown of the country's economy.

"The government is proceeding with the expansion of (Lynden Pindling International Airport). It is (also) proceeding with the New Providence Road Improvement Program of $100 million-plus, it is proceeding with the construction of a new government office complex here in Nassau, one in Grand Bahama and one in Abaco. It is also proceeding with a number of other public sector projects that will help to cushion the impact of the current situation," Ingraham said.