Hyp­o­crit­i­cal!

That’s the ac­cu­sa­tion from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi re­gard­ing Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­plaints about him own­ing prop­er­ty at 3 Alexan­dra Street, Port-of-Spain, which was rent­ed by Gov­ern­ment.

“I took no part (in rental), I com­plete­ly re­cused my­self. At all points in time I made my con­flict of in­ter­est known, there­fore I have no con­flict of in­ter­est and I’ve breached no law in that fac­tor,” Al-Rawi said yes­ter­day.

“But she’s a hyp­ocrite since dur­ing her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tenure prop­er­ties were rent­ed from peo­ple re­lat­ed to per­sons in her gov­ern­ment,” he added, nam­ing the peo­ple.

Al-Rawi trashed her ac­cu­sa­tion that he’d hid­den his in­volve­ment in the prop­er­ty, say­ing the Hous­ing Min­istry un­der her Hous­ing Min­is­ter, Roodal Mooni­lal, had writ­ten his fam­i­ly in 2012 on rent­ing the prop­er­ty al­so.

The AG spoke to re­porters dur­ing a Sen­ate break yes­ter­day, hours af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged Al-Rawi didn’t de­clare his in­ter­est in the mat­ter at the UNC’s Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Tu­na­puna.

Al-Rawi said she made “hyp­o­crit­i­cal, scan­dalous and friv­o­lous” al­le­ga­tions against him and his fam­i­ly on the prop­er­ty, which he said is owned by a com­pa­ny in which he has 50 per cent own­er­ship. On Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim he nev­er re­vealed him­self in the com­pa­ny, he said the Com­pa­nies’ Reg­istry lists com­pa­ny di­rec­tors/own­ers.

He con­firmed the Cab­i­net con­sid­ered rental of the prop­er­ty for one year.

“On every oc­ca­sion, I re­cused my­self, left the room, took no part. All Cab­i­net doc­u­ments will con­firm this, so too will Cab­i­net mem­bers.”

Say­ing he has sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness in­ter­ests, Al-Rawi dis­played a Jan­u­ary 14, 2009 let­ter from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry which ap­proached him on the prop­er­ty since then, of­fer­ing $11 and 50 cents per square foot. He said the prop­er­ty was rent­ed for half the cost.

Al-Rawi al­so not­ed a Jan­u­ary 2012 let­ter to his wife from the Hous­ing Min­istry which was copied to then min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed it was a “se­cret” who owned the com­pa­ny, but “yet in 2012, Mooni­lal’s min­istry is writ­ing my wife (on the prop­er­ty). He not­ed the min­istry let­ter start­ed off stat­ing that as (his wife) was aware, “Var­i­ous Gov­ern­ment min­istries/de­part­ments have in­quired about the avail­abil­i­ty of the build­ing ...”

Al-Rawi added, “So you have the UNC/PP un­der Mooni­lal writ­ing the com­pa­ny which Kam­la claims she knows noth­ing about. I take great of­fence to Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­tend­ing this sit­u­a­tion wasn’t known to her, worse yet pre­tend­ing she doesn’t know my re­cusal hap­pened be­cause she claims to have the min­utes and these will show that (re­cusal). She al­so claimed to have the Cab­i­net notes.

“Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a mas­sive hyp­ocrite be­cause pub­lic records con­cern­ing prop­er­ties rent­ed by gov­ern­ment will show she sat as prime min­is­ter of a cab­i­net that rent­ed prop­er­ty from (ex-PP Min­is­ter) Jack Warn­er’s son Daryan (DW Prop­er­ties.) I know be­cause I in­cor­po­rat­ed that com­pa­ny. But she didn’t make an is­sue of that rental.”

Al-Rawi said un­der the PNM the mat­ter of pur­su­ing the prop­er­ty con­tin­ued “as there are on­ly a few build­ings of A Class qual­i­ty of this par­tic­u­lar size and type to in­vest in, in prime ar­eas.”

“I don’t think I ought to apol­o­gise to have in­vest­ed well or hav­ing done what I need­ed to do to sup­port my fam­i­ly be­cause it could all be ex­plained,” he said, adding the prop­er­ty car­ried a sav­ings since it was leased at ware­house rental rate.

He said the PNM would have nev­er com­plained about such an is­sue as she did.

“As long as there’s val­ue for mon­ey in arm’s length trans­ac­tion arrange­ments, there ought to be noth­ing wrong with it. It’s why the Ra­hael fam­i­ly, own­ing many prop­er­ties as they have, had their prop­er­ties rent­ed by gov­ern­ments - be­cause that’s their busi­ness. The key is whether you de­clare your in­ter­est and if you’ve abused your of­fice to have gained ad­van­tage,” he said.