DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee says the Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to com­ply­ing with pro­cure­ment law, in­sist­ing that no con­tracts linked to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) have been award­ed amid on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

Lee was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the reg­u­la­tor’s in­ter­ven­tion in­to the HDC’s pro­cure­ment process.

In mid-April, the OPR di­rect­ed the HDC to sus­pend the award of $3.4 bil­lion in hous­ing con­tracts pend­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of pro­cure­ment records.

Ac­cord­ing to Lee, the process was still with­in the manda­to­ry stand­still pe­ri­od when the reg­u­la­tor in­ter­vened, mean­ing no con­tracts had yet been fi­nalised.

“Those con­tracts were in a hold­ing stand­still pe­ri­od. From what I am aware, based on what I have read, no one has been is­sued any con­tracts by the HDC,” he said.

Asked whether he was con­cerned about the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the State hous­ing agency, Lee said he pre­ferred to await the reg­u­la­tor’s find­ings be­fore draw­ing con­clu­sions.

“Let’s wait to hear what the OPR has to say,” he said, de­scrib­ing the body as the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ty to ex­am­ine the mat­ter.

Lee al­so ad­dressed al­le­ga­tions raised by Ex­press in­ves­tiga­tive re­porter Mark Bas­sant, who claimed that a man pur­port­ing to rep­re­sent an HDC of­fi­cial un­der scruti­ny at­tempt­ed to pay him to sup­press a sto­ry linked to al­leged col­lu­sion in­volv­ing con­tracts un­der the now-sus­pend­ed hous­ing pro­gramme.

The Hous­ing Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed the mat­ter should be re­ferred to law en­force­ment if cred­i­ble ev­i­dence ex­ists.

“Mark Bas­sant pur­ports to be an in­ves­tiga­tive re­porter. If you know some­thing and you feel it needs go­ing to po­lice, then he should go to the po­lice. He shouldn’t do the bait-and-switch kind of sto­ry that he nor­mal­ly does. So, if he has more in­for­ma­tion or he’s sell­ing news­pa­pers, then we await the out­come of maybe part two or part three,” Lee said.

“But the me­dia can­not keep putting out these catch­phras­es to sell news­pa­pers. It is do­ing an in­jus­tice to an in­sti­tu­tion; it is do­ing an in­jus­tice to the so­ci­ety as a whole.”

Mean­while, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein de­clined to re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day re­gard­ing al­le­ga­tions of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in pro­cure­ment process­es in­volv­ing Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed.

In a let­ter dat­ed April 20, the OPR launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Land­mark­TT over con­cerns sur­round­ing the pro­cure­ment process for a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar hous­ing project in Corinth, San Fer­nan­do.

Land­mark­TT falls un­der the Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs.

Ho­sein has not re­spond­ed to mul­ti­ple re­quests for com­ment since the mat­ter be­came pub­lic ear­li­er this week.