An Opposition backbencher has hit back at “insulting and disparaging statements” about him by the public works minister.

Trevor Moniz said Lieutenant-Colonel David Burch had attacked him and the One Bermuda Alliance last month and accused the former government of cutting back an affordable housing project in Dockyard.

Colonel Burch also told MPs that prefab materials had deteriorated during five years in storage after the 100 Homes Project was cut down to 20 residences.

But Mr Moniz, a former public works minister, told MPs Friday that the OBA had been clear in its criticism of the project before the 2012 General Election that gave the party the Government. Mr Moniz said “it was, therefore, no surprise” that in January 2013 the scheme was scaled back.

Mr Moniz said the OBA saw the “abject failure” of Warwick’s Grand Atlantic affordable housing project, where only two units were purchased, as proof that the island had more than enough housing after “a major exodus” of residents under the Progressive Labour Party.

He added: “The fundamental disagreement is with the minister’s contention that there is a shortage of adequate housing.”

Mr Moniz said that cutting the project had saved $11 million and spared the area from “an unacceptably dense housing development”. He also objected to being blamed for the storage of leftover material as he had left the portfolio in December 2013.

Mr Moniz told the House that the spare prefabs had been left in the care of the West End Development Corporation.