Geisha Kow­lessar

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) Jear­lean John has been of­fi­cial­ly cleared by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion of breach­es of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. How­ev­er, the mo­tive for plac­ing her un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion was a sin­is­ter at­tempt to de­stroy her, she said.

John spoke about the mat­ter while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing a lun­cheon host­ed by the Trinidad Union Club at Nicholas Tow­ers, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. In ear­ly Oc­to­ber 2011, John's lawyers wrote to the com­mis­sion seek­ing an­swers about the probe in­volv­ing her.

John, who had main­tained she was un­aware of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, had de­mand­ed the res­ig­na­tion of then com­mis­sion chair­man, Dr Er­ic St Cyr, who ini­tial­ly re­vealed to the me­dia that she was at the cen­tre of a probe by the com­mis­sion. On Oc­to­ber 11, 2011, St Cyr re­signed af­ter serv­ing for 19 months. John is al­so the chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Ude­cott).

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion cen­tred on her daugh­ter, Aisha Serette-Dais­ley, and al­le­ga­tions that she had se­cured a con­tract from Ude­cott. But John de­nied that, say­ing her daugh­ter, who is an at­tor­ney, nev­er had any deal­ings with the Ude­cott board. John, who re­ceived a let­ter from the com­mis­sion two weeks ago, read it to the au­di­ence.

The let­ter said on Oc­to­ber 3, 2011, John was ad­vised of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing her of pos­si­ble breach­es of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act Chap­ter 22:01. "Kind­ly be ad­vised that the com­mis­sion con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and has found no ev­i­dence to sup­port any breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act," the let­ter stat­ed.

Hold­ing the let­ter, John said: "This is the risk you run as a pub­lic fig­ure when you try to do good...you mash on peo­ple corn." Say­ing she came from hum­ble be­gin­nings in Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go, with no "sil­ver spoon or ear­ly men­tors," John added: "I al­ways tell peo­ple the beach on which I grew up is not 'eye blue eye' or 'beach by the bay.' It is Man of War Bay."

John, who said her in­tegri­ty was al­ways in­tact, de­scribed the let­ter as "vin­di­ca­tion on pa­per." "It is vin­di­cat­ed on pa­per-but cer­tain­ly I al­ways knew that I had done noth­ing wrong as such, so the process could not have said any­thing else," she said. The tragedy, she added, was how the mat­ter un­fold­ed. "You found your­self hav­ing to run be­hind your name to catch it, and did I not live maybe in a coun­try where a lot of peo­ple were will­ing to give me the ben­e­fit of the doubt," John said.

"I could have been de­stroyed, and then that would not have been any easy thing." Say­ing she be­lieved the probe was launched not on­ly to tar­nish her good name but al­so to "de­stroy" her, John added: "Well, ob­vi­ous­ly that was the in­ten­tion be­hind it...there was no doubt about it.

"You are bring­ing change...you are work­ing hard, and there are folks who de­cide you ought not to do the job that you are do­ing." John said she was grate­ful that pri­or­i­ty was giv­en to clear­ing her name, adding, "I am OK." Pressed fur­ther, John said there was noth­ing more she could do. "They have looked and they have seen noth­ing, and that is good enough for me."