Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds yes­ter­day gave de­tails of how he ac­quired his Mar­aval home but at the same time called on his ac­cuser, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, to dis­close how he bought sev­er­al mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar prop­er­ties and a new cus­tom-built Range Rover val­ued at $1.6 mil­lion.Hinds said he had writ­ten to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion on Ju­ly 29 about Ram­lo­gan's new ve­hi­cle, a Range Rover V8, which car­ried the reg­is­tra­tion num­ber PCX 2.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence, at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, Charles Street, Port-of- Spain, Hinds said he was will­ing to make all records avail­able in re­la­tion to his house and called on Ram­lo­gan to do the same with re­spect to his mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar prop­er­ties and new Range Rover.Hinds says his Hills­boro, Mar­aval, house was built from hard work, sac­ri­fice and no wrong­do­ing.

Ram­lo­gan told Par­lia­ment last week Hinds was a "mock­ing pre­tender" who owned a posh house in Hills­boro worth $14 mil­lion but nev­er al­lowed his con­stituents to vis­it him and swim in his pool.Hinds said yes­ter­day he had bought the house through "sweat, hard work and prayer on the part of my fam­i­ly and I."

He said he start­ed work­ing in 1976 when he be­came a po­lice of­fi­cer and was sub­se­quent­ly an in­sur­ance sales­man, lawyer and politi­cian. He was elect­ed an MP in 1995 and was a ju­nior min­is­ter in a for­mer gov­ern­ment for al­most four years.Hinds said he and his wife pur­chased a piece of land in 1998 at Lot 11, Bar­ry Av­enue, Hills­boro, and the trans­ac­tion was con­sum­mat­ed in May 2001, via a loan from East­ern Cred­it Union. He said the land was then mort­gaged in 2005.

"It took all of six years for me to con­struct that home. That home is still in­com­plete," he added. Hinds said the so-called pool at his home was "still in­com­plete. I now have no swim­ming pool."He said he pur­chased a com­mer­cial prop­er­ty on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of Spain, to house his law of­fices and the loan for that prop­er­ty was al­so from the East­ern Cred­it Union. Hinds said it was ac­quired in 2004 and the loan was re­paid two months ago.

He said he bought a Pra­do SUV while he was a ju­nior min­is­ter, which was paid for with a loan from the Par­lia­ment, then sold it in 2007 to fin­ish build­ing his house, which was com­plet­ed in 2009/10.He point­ed out that an Op­po­si­tion MP was en­ti­tled to con­tin­ue his prac­tice and he did that un­fail­ing­ly.Four months ago, through a loan from the Par­lia­ment, he pur­chased "a posh Cayenne ve­hi­cle" and that loan was now be­ing ser­viced through the Par­lia­ment, he added.

Hinds said the East­ern Cred­it Union, First Cit­i­zens and the Par­lia­ment had full de­tails of the trans­ac­tions and the bank and the cred­it union have been au­tho­rised to "make avail­able any or all of these records any time to any au­tho­rised po­lice of­fi­cer and any au­tho­rised of­fi­cer of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion."He added that all the prop­er­ties had been con­sis­tent­ly de­clared to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion on an an­nu­al ba­sis but he had not de­clared the Cayenne yet be­cause he ac­quired it this year.

He said the AG, with the help of a few strange friends in the me­dia, made the state­ment to de­flect ques­tions raised about the man­age­ment of his min­istry.

AG replies:

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan in re­sponse said yes­ter­day his state­ment in Par­lia­ment last week had noth­ing to do with the cost or val­ue of Hinds' house but re­lat­ed to the "hum­ble' pub­lic im­age he por­trayed which was in­con­sis­tent with his life with the elite at Hills­boro.

Ram­lo­gan said Hinds had asked youths in Laven­tille, Dun­can Street, Nel­son Street, Besson Street and Diego Mar­tin to re­ject book bags and oth­er school sup­plies from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress youth arm, while re­fus­ing to in­vite them to his Mar­aval home and of­fer them a meal.On his new car, Ram­lo­gan said he has re­peat­ed­ly spo­ken about it pub­licly and was "al­ways hap­py to co-op­er­ate with any in­ves­ti­ga­tion on the is­sue."

He said he nev­er made any al­le­ga­tion of cor­rup­tion against Hinds in his state­ment in Par­lia­ment.