Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee says he will not step down amid re­newed fraud al­le­ga­tions, in­sist­ing he is in­no­cent and call­ing on the me­dia to in­ves­ti­gate how the case resur­faced.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Lee thanked his sup­port­ers and col­leagues for stand­ing by him and said the charges felt like “dou­ble jeop­ardy.”

“I am in­no­cent of this sec­ond round. The first time I was cleared on April 7, and it feels like, you know, dou­ble jeop­ardy in this mat­ter with me,” he said. “All I ask the me­dia is to fol­low the pa­per trail of how this came to life again.”

When asked whether he had of­fered to re­sign, Lee said the Prime Min­is­ter “stood strong” with him and main­tained that he re­mains Min­is­ter of Hous­ing.

“She has main­tained that I am the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing. My col­leagues have sup­port­ed me, and I am in­no­cent un­til proven oth­er­wise, and I don’t feel at this point in time my res­ig­na­tion is in play,” he said.

Asked if he would have called for res­ig­na­tions if it were a mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment fac­ing charges, he said, “ So I un­der­stand what the Op­po­si­tion role is. As a mat­ter of fact, I want to say a lot of peo­ple on the Op­po­si­tion side has, they have reached out to me in sup­port. So I un­der­stand they have a job to do. We in Gov­ern­ment have a job to do. I am more res­olute and stronger to go ahead as the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and to de­liv­er to the peo­ple.”

Lee al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions that the con­tro­ver­sy could be po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed or com­ing from with­in his own par­ty.

“They call me love­ly. So I don’t un­der­stand. I do think that is a ques­tion to be asked. I al­ways stay in my lane and I’m con­sid­ered love­ly,” he said

He end­ed by re­it­er­at­ing his call for re­porters to “fol­low the pa­per trail” and said he was con­fi­dent he would be vin­di­cat­ed in court.

And Lee’s Cab­i­net col­leagues are stand­ing be­hind him. When asked if he should re­sign, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein sim­ply said, “The Prime Min­is­ter has spo­ken.”

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lakram Bo­doe said, “The Min­is­ter of Hous­ing is a hard-work­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. The Prime Min­is­ter has ex­pressed full sup­port. We be­lieve in the courts of law in the coun­try, and we await the out­come of the mat­ter.”

Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj was asked if he would have re­signed had he been in the same po­si­tion. How­ev­er, he said, “I would take the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on this mat­ter.”

Mean­while, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter should ap­ply the same stan­dards she once de­mand­ed of oth­ers.

“We main­tain our po­si­tion as it re­lates to Mr Lee,” she said.

“You said in re­la­tion to Mr Warn­er that you can­not re­turn to the house of the ris­ing sun un­til you clear your name, and there­fore we are ask­ing this Prime Min­is­ter to do the same as it re­lates to Mr David Lee.”

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert ques­tioned Lee’s claims of po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.

“I no­ticed a video from a pre­vi­ous time Mr Lee found him­self in dif­fi­cul­ty, and he said it was a po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt by the then prime min­is­ter, Dr Row­ley. So what is it now, a witch-hunt by the cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter, Ms Bisses­sar? Be­cause the PNM is not in gov­ern­ment any­more,” he said.

Beck­les added, “At that time, they blamed us, say­ing the PNM was re­spon­si­ble for his dif­fi­cul­ty. But with­in a six-month pe­ri­od, you now have a sit­u­a­tion where the DPP has de­cid­ed there is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence for him to again be called to act. So we await his de­ci­sion.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so sug­gest­ed that it may come down to pub­lic pres­sure for Lee to be re­moved.

“But, I mean, we have seen where tra­di­tion­al­ly, the pub­lic feels strong­ly about it. You would find that that is a mat­ter that they would put cer­tain­ly a lot more pres­sure on him, and the pos­si­bil­i­ty ex­ists,” Beck­les said.