Coun­cil­lor Van­dana Mo­hit has hand­ed over doc­u­ments to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein high­light­ing al­leged “cor­rupt prac­tices” in the Build­ing In­spec­torate de­part­ment of the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

Mo­hit, whose pri­vate res­i­dence was shot up at last Mon­day, said she first saw the doc­u­ments and raised ques­tions about its con­tents mere days be­fore the shoot­ing. She be­lieves both in­ci­dents are linked.

Gun­men fired over 14 bul­lets at Mo­hit’s Cunu­pia home around 9.30pm on Sep­tem­ber 17, leav­ing her and fam­i­ly mem­bers scur­ry­ing for shel­ter in­side the house.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Mo­hit said about two months ago she be­gan re­ceiv­ing calls from burgess­es who com­plained they were un­able to re­ceive ap­provals for their build­ing projects.

“There are many peo­ple with­in the bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas who have prob­lems re­ceiv­ing ap­provals in terms of com­ple­tion as well as sub­di­vi­sion plan­ning, which has been brought to my at­ten­tion and I was just try­ing to deal with those mat­ters and that is how I came across these dis­crep­an­cies,” she said.

Asked what the dis­crep­an­cies were, Mo­hit replied, “There were amend­ments of dates on cer­tain files re­gard­ing com­ple­tion cer­tifi­cates and no date traces of where in­spec­tions were com­plet­ed or done at cer­tain premis­es. I gave him (Ho­sein) doc­u­ments where I saw some amend­ments of dates and when we vis­it­ed cer­tain sites which would have come for ap­provals and there were ex­ist­ing de­fects.”

She said they vis­it­ed the sites on Sep­tem­ber 14 and her home was tar­get­ed on Sep­tem­ber 17.

“It was on­ly the Thurs­day when I vis­it­ed the sites I could have pro­nounced on what I saw and a cou­ple of days af­ter - that was Thurs­day and the shoot­ing oc­curred on Mon­day.”

She was adamant, how­ev­er, that she will not hide from crim­i­nals.

“I have no rea­son to hide if I be­lieve in what I stand for, there is no rea­son for me to run from any­one, there is the truth and there are al­le­ga­tions and I be­lieve I work with doc­u­ments giv­en to me at this cor­po­ra­tion at all times and if I see cer­tain mat­ters which need to be raised, I will raise it,” Mo­hit said.

“I don’t know what is com­ing next and I will try to keep my­self safe but I will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed be­cause my fight is for the peo­ple who I rep­re­sent.”

She said fol­low­ing the shoot­ing she had been told the men re­spon­si­ble were seen lim­ing at a bar close to her home hours be­fore the in­ci­dent. She said she has passed on this in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice and is giv­ing them a chance to their in­ves­ti­ga­tion prop­er­ly.

Ho­sein vis­it­ed the cor­po­ra­tion yes­ter­day to at­tend a statu­to­ry meet­ing, as he has been do­ing at oth­er cor­po­ra­tions across the coun­try over the past few months.

In a brief in­ter­view be­fore Mo­hit hand­ed over the doc­u­ments, how­ev­er, he said if he re­ceived some­thing in writ­ing he would in­ves­ti­gate.

“Noth­ing on al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion came to me - once it comes to me I will know how to han­dle it. I am not talk­ing about not hearsay, once it comes to me in writ­ing I will in­ves­ti­gate.”