Geisha Kow­lessar

On a three-acre par­cel of prime agri­cul­tur­al land nes­tled in the Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma stands sev­er­al ma­jes­tic con­crete columns which once sup­port­ed a sprawl­ing pan-shaped roof. They were once part of a struc­ture, es­ti­mat­ed to cost $30 mil­lion, which was to be one of the largest church­es in the Caribbean. How­ev­er, what was in­tend­ed to be an im­pres­sive ed­i­fice, a place of wor­ship un­like any oth­er in this coun­try, has been re­duced to un­sight­ly ru­ins in just a few short months.

Twist­ed met­al and huge chunks of bro­ken con­crete are ev­i­dence of the wan­ton loot­ing that took place af­ter the con­struc­tion site was aban­doned. The ru­ins of what was planned as the Light­house of the Lord Je­sus Christ Church, a project spear­head­ed by Rev Ju­liana Pe­na, are lo­cat­ed at Ceme­tery Street, Gua­napo on some 15,580.31 square me­tres of land. The ed­i­fice was be­ing con­struct­ed to have a floor area of 2,980.85 square me­tres. Work on the church came to a sud­den halt just be­fore the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion af­ter it was al­leged that State funds were be­ing used for its con­struc­tion.

Ques­tions were raised about the in­volve­ment of Shang­hai Con­struc­tion Group (SCG), a Chi­nese firm brought in via the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) to car­ry out sev­er­al ma­jor State projects. The day be­fore the elec­tion, Chi­nese work­men hired by SCG to build the church fled the site, tak­ing with them im­por­tant doc­u­ments which could have as­sist­ed the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Just days be­fore that, on May 15, the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship held a press brief­ing and pro­duced doc­u­ments link­ing then Ude­cott chair­man, Calder Hart and then prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning to the con­tro­ver­sial church.

The doc­u­ments re­vealed ap­par­ent links with Ude­cott.

Pe­na, an elu­sive fig­ure who has not been seen since the con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed, was re­put­ed to be a spir­i­tu­al ad­vis­er to Man­ning. She is re­ferred to by many as "the prophet­ess." An­ti-cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tors had sought the as­sis­tance of In­ter­pol to lo­cate Rev Pe­na when they be­gan their probe in­to the con­struc­tion of the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Gua­napo church. Pe­na, who re­port­ed­ly lives in the Unit­ed States, has on­ly been to the church site once since the start of its con­struc­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have so far been un­suc­cess­ful in lo­cat­ing her al­though she had ad­dress­es in Ari­ma, where rel­a­tives now live. Pe­na and Hart are at the cen­tre of a po­lice probe of the church's con­struc­tion which is re­port­ed to be at a sen­si­tive stage. The is­sue, which was the fo­cus of in­tense na­tion­al de­bate just a few months ago, no longer gen­er­ates con­tro­ver­sy and news head­lines.

Res­i­dents: It's dis­tress­ing

How­ev­er, the ap­par­ent lack of ac­tion on the is­sue is not sit­ting well with dis­grun­tled Gua­napo res­i­dents who say the site is an eye­sore. They want Gov­ern­ment to ei­ther com­plete the build­ing, or al­low them to trans­form it in­to a mul­ti-pur­pose com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. "It's not just about the church any­more," said spokesman for the res­i­dents, Make­da Wash­ing­ton. "When you think about how much mil­lions spend here and how much peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty are un­em­ployed, it is in­sult­ing and dis­tress­ing. "All we hear­ing is that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion go­ing on. You don't even see a po­lice ve­hi­cle pass­ing any­more."

Wash­ing­ton said the road lead­ing to Gua­napo had been in a de­plorable state for more than 30 years, but "be­cause of the church it fix hur­ry, hur­ry." She said res­i­dents re­alised some­thing ma­jor was tak­ing place at the con­struc­tion site "since day one." "Patrick Man­ning was com­ing in here all the time," she claimed. "They promised to give youths from the area work, but af­ter they se­cured the com­pound they bring in the Chi­nese." Wash­ing­ton sug­gest­ed that the loot­ing at the site was the res­i­dents' way of vent­ing their anger and frus­tra­tion at a sit­u­a­tion they re­gard­ed as "in­tol­er­a­ble and un­just." "What hap­pened here is what hap­pened to the (pre­vi­ous) gov­ern­ment. Peo­ple were just fed up and they took out their frus­tra­tion," she said.

A free for all

Wash­ing­ton urged the Gov­ern­ment to make a de­ci­sion soon about the church, since the res­i­dents are pre­pared to stage a mas­sive protest over the poor in­fra­struc­ture and lack of com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties. "My chil­dren have to be stuck in the house be­cause they don't have any­where to play. I can­not take a walk, we don't have a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, we have noth­ing. "All we have is a land­fill and a quar­ry. Peo­ple just com­ing and tak­ing what they want and the rest of the pop­u­la­tion just dump­ing what they don't want," Wash­ing­ton said.

The Heights of Gua­napo is an agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty with a pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500. Ac­cord­ing to Wash­ing­ton, un­em­ploy­ment in the area is "dis­turbing­ly high" and the com­mu­ni­ty is al­so faced with oth­er prob­lems, in­clud­ing drug abuse, pover­ty and des­ti­tu­tion. Wash­ing­ton said res­i­dents share a com­mon vi­sion for a bet­ter life. "We want a mul­ti-pur­pose com­mu­ni­ty com­plex. In the mid­dle we have dreams of an in­door sport­ing fa­cil­i­ty. We want to put a walk­way on the top and a day-care cen­tre. We have noth­ing and this is the on­ly struc­ture we could op­er­ate in.

"Peo­ple still feel it is about the church but it is not that any­more. If the Gov­ern­ment does not want to com­plete the struc­ture, we will com­plete it our­selves," she said. Mil­lions of dol­lars of iron, tools, equip­ment and build­ing ma­te­ri­als were cart­ed away dur­ing the loot­ing. Res­i­dent Cal­lis­tus Prince, 27, re­called: "We just watch­ing while they load­ing thing. Is who come out in their soft shirt and tie. The ma­jor­i­ty who take thing is big men who had their trans­port." He said the loot­ers cart­ed away tools, iron and what­ev­er else had val­ue.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, when ques­tioned about the sta­tus of the po­lice probe in­to the Gua­napo church, di­rect­ed all ques­tions to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy. How­ev­er, Sandy said he had no com­ment to make on the is­sue. An of­fi­cial at the AG's of­fice said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was at a "very sen­si­tive and crit­i­cal stage" but was far from com­plete. The of­fi­cial added that Ram­lo­gan will ad­dress the na­tion about the Gua­napo is­sue soon. The of­fi­cial al­so in­sist­ed that the po­lice are "very much aware" of Hart's where­abouts. Last June, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard ad­vised the po­lice to be­gin an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the con­struc­tion of the Light­house of the Lord Je­sus Christ Church at the Heights of Gua­napo.

Of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) were as­signed to con­duct a full probe in­to al­leged mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice and mis­use of pub­lic funds in con­nec­tion with the con­tro­ver­sial project. Apart from Pe­na, Hart and for­mer prime min­is­ter Man­ning, the po­lice were ex­pect­ed to in­ter­view of­fi­cials of Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion and SCG. How­ev­er, the is­sue is shroud­ed in se­cre­cy. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sub­has Pan­day, when ques­tioned, said he had no idea of the sta­tus of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. An e-mail sent to Tong Ji Sheng, di­rec­tor and pres­i­dent of Over­seas Busi­ness of SCG, gen­er­at­ed no re­sponse. Al­leged church de­sign­er Stephen Mendes has re­port­ed­ly left De­signs Col­lab­o­ra­tive As­so­ciates Ltd (DCAL), at Eller­slie Plaza Mar­aval. An of­fi­cial at the firm said Mendes had re­signed but was un­able to state his cur­rent place of em­ploy­ment.

"We re­al­ly have no idea where he went. He just left," the of­fi­cial said. Mendes shot in­to the spot­light a few months ago when doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to the church con­struc­tion prob­lem sur­faced. Those doc­u­ments made ref­er­ence to "the PM" and showed that the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion had grant­ed fi­nal ap­proval for the church on April 16 this year. Mendes, in a sworn state­ment, con­firmed the "PM" in the doc­u­ment re­ferred to Man­ning. He fur­ther stat­ed that Pe­na made an "im­pas­sioned plea" to him af­ter he met her at Hart's of­fice where he went for a meet­ing on a sep­a­rate mat­ter. Man­ning, in a sub­se­quent in­ter­view, claimed "PM" meant Project Man­ag­er. He agreed to give ad­vice on the de­signs for free and sub­se­quent­ly ap­pealed to Hart to in­form Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion that he was not the own­er nor con­trac­tor for the church project.