Geisha Kow­lessar

Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue pay­ing rent for the con­tro­ver­sial build­ing at 1 Alexan­dra Street, Port-of-Spain, at least un­til No­vem­ber. The build­ing re­mains un­oc­cu­pied.In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray said she could not say when it might be oc­cu­pied. When pressed for an ex­pect­ed date she on­ly said: "I can­not say at this time."She added that the lease was due to ex­pire next No­vem­ber but said she need­ed to do some re­search as to why the build­ing had not been oc­cu­pied.

The is­sue was brought to the fore in Par­lia­ment last week when Coudray was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Ali­cia Hospedales.Coudray said the sup­pli­er of the ser­vice prod­uct was one N J Na­hous and that the rental agree­ment on the build­ing had been in place since 2009 un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.Since 2010, Gov­ern­ment has been pay­ing $8.2 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in rent, at $690,000 a month, for the emp­ty build­ing in ad­di­tion to $927,360 a year for se­cu­ri­ty.

If the lease is ho­n­oured to its end, Gov­ern­ment will have to pay ap­prox­i­mate­ly $6.2 mil­lion for the pe­ri­od up to No­vem­ber.Asked who were the own­ers of the prop­er­ty Coudray said: "Na­hous."On whether if she could spec­i­fy a name Coudray said: "It is Faris Al-Rawi's (Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer) fa­ther-in-law."

The T&T Guardian al­so e-mailed ques­tions about the build­ing to Shel­ley Sul­tan­ti-Ma­haraj, co-or­di­na­tor at the prop­er­ty and re­al es­tate ser­vices di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment.The is­sue of out­fit­ting and oc­cu­pa­tion, Sul­tan­ti-Ma­haraj said, should be redi­rect­ed to the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment since the con­tract with the ser­vice provider was ex­e­cut­ed by that min­istry.

Asked how many oth­er emp­ty build­ings the gov­ern­ment was pay­ing rent for and at what cost, the re­sponse was: "Your last ques­tion is lead­ing and as­sumes that there are oth­er emp­ty build­ings for which gov­ern­ment is pay­ing rent." The Alexan­dra Street build­ing was orig­i­nal­ly ear­marked for the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment at the time when Hazel Man­ning was a min­is­ter and the rental con­tract was signed un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment, which lost the 2010 elec­tion short­ly af­ter­ward.

Asked why the build­ing was not oc­cu­pied un­der his tenure, for­mer Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan said it was "be­ing out­fit­ted," adding that part of it was al­ready com­plet­ed."There was a con­tract and the build­ing was rent­ed for the PNM by the PNM. If the Guardian wants to know the truth they would write that," he said.

Al-Rawi dis­tances him­self

Checks at the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry re­vealed there was no com­pa­ny called "NJ Na­hous" but a NJ Na­hous In­vest­ments Ltd, whose prin­ci­pal share­hold­er is Nazem Na­hous.Di­rec­tors list­ed in­clude Nazem Na­hous (busi­ness­man), Ji­nan Na­hous (busi­ness­woman), Michael Na­hous (busi­ness­man), Gi­na Na­hous-Ha­j­dar (busi­ness­woman) and Mona Na­hous-Al Rawi, whose hus­band is PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi.Al-Rawi, how­ev­er, has made it clear that he has no fi­nan­cial in­ter­est in the build­ing.

"I per­son­al­ly have no in­ter­est in that en­ti­ty. I am aware that the Gov­ern­ment rent­ed that build­ing on or around 2010 and that it pays a mar­ket rental be­low the rate paid by the gov­ern­ment to many en­ti­ties," Al-Rawi said.NJ Na­hous In­vest­ment Ltd, he added, was a lim­it­ed-li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny which had been a land­lord to suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments, in­clud­ing the UNC, PNM, NAR and UNC, since the ear­ly 1970s. Al-Rawi al­so knocked Coudray for her com­ments.

"If Ms Coudray's words are in­tend­ed to be spec­u­la­tive of some lack of trans­paren­cy, then let her come out and say so," Al-Rawi added.He said the own­er of the build­ing "cer­tain­ly can­not" be called up­on to speak to gov­ern­ment is­sues as it is "on­ly a land­lord."He added: "Any at­tempt to draw sala­cious ref­er­ences to me are fu­tile. Any of my per­son­al busi­ness can cer­tain­ly stand up to full scruti­ny.

"I am aware that there are many prop­er­ties rent­ed un­der this regime which are owned by fam­i­ly mem­bers of the UNC."He said he came from a fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty which have sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in T&T.