The Courier-Mail has obtained documents showing the Government expected about 75,000 to 200,000 of those people would obtain zero-interest bank loans for energy improvements.
But six months into the scheme, only 1000 loans have been issued from only 1600 applications. Sources told The Courier-Mail the poor take-up was caused by assessors rushing through two-hour audits to maximise earnings and a dodgy system for booking households for the program.
Call centres being run by some training organisations were misleading people into believing the audits were mandatory to get fast bookings before funding ran out.
A spokesman for Environment Minister Peter Garrett pointed to the demand for the assessments and assessor training as measures of success.
“Demand for the Green Loans program has been significant, both for householders as well as for people seeking to enter the market as sustainability assessors, right around the nation,” he said.
Failure to achieve the loan take-up expectations was not seen as a problem.
source here.
