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Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Mar­lene in ethics ac­cu­sa­tion over house

Minister says Fidelis Heights home is not hers

by

20151228

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc Don­ald says she does not own a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) al­lo­cat­ed home.

She said this in an in­ter­view last night af­ter be­ing re­ferred to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion from Op­po­si­tion UNC Sen­a­tor Wayne Sturge.

Mc­Don­ald said she pur­chased her own home pri­vate­ly in 1995 and could not claim own­er­ship of any oth­er house. She did not say where she lives."Let him go to the com­mis­sion. Let the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion do what they have to do. This is noth­ing but a wild goose chase," Mc Don­ald said."

Sturge yes­ter­day re­ferred Mc Don­ald to the Com­mis­sion over al­le­ga­tions that she used her of­fice to ob­tain a town­house for one Michael Carew, de­scribed as her com­mon law hus­band.

The al­le­ga­tion dates back to 2008, when Mc Don­ald was the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs.

Sturge's ac­tion comes one month af­ter for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal claimed he had ev­i­dence that a sit­ting PNM Cab­i­net Min­is­ter owned an HDC house and paid for it with cash. There's no in­de­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion, in Sturge's sub­mis­sion, whether the min­is­ter re­ferred to was Mc­Don­ald.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view late yes­ter­day evening, Mc Don­ald said there was no HDC house in her name.

Mc Don­ald said she took her po­si­tion as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter very se­ri­ous­ly and added that there had been ear­li­er claims about a sim­i­lar oc­cur­rence.

"When I heard an­oth­er for­mer min­is­ter make claims that some­one in the PNM had pur­chased an HDC home I wrote to the CEO of HDC. I asked her to do a re­port for me on which Cab­i­net min­is­ter owned an HDC home.

"I got an an­swer from her in writ­ing and it said no cab­i­net min­is­ter owned an HDC home. I still have that let­ter.

Mc Don­ald, who re­ferred to Sturge as a stranger, said she found it cu­ri­ous, that the at­tor­ney claimed to know her per­son­al busi­ness.

"I do not know him. We have nev­er spo­ken to each oth­er out­side of Par­lia­ment."

She said Carew was be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly.

"Any cit­i­zen of this coun­try is free to go to the HDC an ap­ply for a house. Whether or not you know the min­is­ter, HDC has to do their as­sess­ment and then they make their de­ci­sion. I dare any­one at HDC to say I asked them to give Mr Carew a house."

"If he de­cides to buy a home, he is not a per­son in pub­lic life he can do so."

Doc­u­ments ob­tained by the Guardian de­tailed cor­re­spon­dence al­leged­ly from Mc Don­ald's then ad­vi­sor Odette Alexan­der, to then act­ing Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Mar­garet Chow, and Lau­ren Legall, the Al­lo­ca­tions Man­ag­er at the time.

The doc­u­ments showed re­quests made, al­leged­ly on Mc Don­ald's be­half, for a hous­ing unit to be al­lo­cat­ed to Mc Don­ald's part­ner, Carew, at Fi­delis Heights.

Fi­delis Heights is a de­vel­op­ment of and man­aged by the HDC in St Au­gus­tine.

Asked about these let­ters, Mc Don­ald on­ly said that she nev­er had an ad­vi­sor be­tween 2007 and 2010.

"Miss Odette Alexan­der was not my ad­vi­sor."

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, rec­om­men­da­tions were made in Au­gust and Sep­tem­ber of 2008 for Carew to be al­lo­cat­ed a unit.

The rec­om­men­da­tion of the min­is­ter was then al­leged­ly act­ed up­on by the act­ing man­ag­er Mar­garet Chow who ap­proved the al­lo­ca­tion of the unit to Carew on De­cem­ber 3, 2008.

Carew, al­leged­ly made the pay­ment for the town­house the next day.

Sturge says the mat­ter is "most se­ri­ous" and "trou­bling" in light of the fact that Mc Don­ald present­ly held the port­fo­lio of Hous­ing Min­is­ter.

"If these al­le­ga­tions are found to be true, as pri­ma fa­cie the ev­i­dence seems to sug­gest, it would not be right for such a per­son to con­tin­ue to hold such of­fice and be vest­ed with th the pow­ers of the of­fice hold­er.

"In the pub­lic in­ter­est and in the prop­er dis­charge of its func­tions un­der the Act, I here­by call up­on the com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate this com­plaint forth­with and to give this in­ves­ti­ga­tion pri­or­i­ty," Sturge wrote.

The doc­u­ments al­so in­clud­ed a bank state­ment, cheque and oth­er doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to the al­leged in­ci­dent.

Sturge is ask­ing the Com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­gate whether Mc­Don­ald used her po­si­tion as a Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment to rec­om­mend her spouse be al­lo­cat­ed the unit.

The unit, which Sturge al­leged was nev­er oc­cu­pied by ei­ther Mc Don­ald or Carew, was rent­ed out since its al­lo­ca­tion and the sen­a­tor says this should al­so be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

"This town­house is a unit that ought to have been al­lo­cat­ed to a de­serv­ing mem­ber of the pub­lic but in­stead it ap­pears that it has been al­lo­cat­ed to Mr Carew and is be­ing used as an in­come gen­er­at­ing as­set," Sturge claimed.


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