Renu­ka Singh

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) Jear­lean John is cit­ing "po­lit­i­cal mo­ti­va­tion" as the on­ly rea­son be­hind a de­ci­sion by the new HDC board of di­rec­tors to send her home yes­ter­day.

John and sev­en oth­er mem­bers of se­nior man­age­ment were sent on im­me­di­ate leave.

The new board, head­ed by New­man George, met for the first time yes­ter­day and af­ter a pre­sen­ta­tion in­to the works by the HDC, the board called for an in­de­pen­dent au­dit of the State-owned or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that the au­dit is to be done by Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers.

The board al­so de­ter­mined then that John and sev­en oth­er se­nior lev­el per­son­nel would be sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, pend­ing the com­ple­tion of the in­de­pen­dent au­dit.

John, in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian mo­ments af­ter the de­ci­sion, said she was sur­prised the board would make such a move, and al­leged po­lit­i­cal mo­tives be­hind the board's de­ci­sion.

"This board ob­vi­ous­ly came in to take po­lit­i­cal ac­tion. This has to be po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed," John said.

She said her work "crossed par­ty lines" and be­cause of her in­nate pro­fes­sion­al­ism she was able to work well de­spite the po­lit­i­cal di­vides.

"Every­thing they asked me for, I have pro­vid­ed with no in­di­ca­tion of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the in­for­ma­tion re­ceived.

"Even what they have not yet asked for that is part of the nat­ur­al han­dover, I have pro­vid­ed. I have re­mained open and trans­par­ent so I don't un­der­stand how the need for an in­de­pen­dent au­dit can be a rea­son for me be­ing sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave," John said.

The T&T Guardian re­ceived texts be­tween George and John, which show that George con­tact­ed John at 11.36 pm on Tues­day night in­form­ing her that he had "two mat­ters" which need­ed at­ten­tion and ad­vised her to call him by 5.30 the next morn­ing.

John re­spond­ed im­me­di­ate­ly to that text and then called him the next day.

When asked about that ex­change, John said she found it "un­pro­fes­sion­al" but recog­nised then what she was deal­ing with.

That, the T&T Guardian was told, was ce­ment­ed when George told John, the chief le­gal of­fi­cer and the cor­po­rate sec­re­tary that he "had no heart and no con­science."

"My ex­pec­ta­tion is that the au­dit goes back from the pe­ri­ods 2000-2004, then 2005-2009 and 2010-2015," John said.

She joined the HDC in 2009, ap­point­ed by the then Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion to re­place Noel Gar­cia.

Gar­cia is now the chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) where John sat un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

John dis­miss­es all al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance to ei­ther the PNM or the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship and had main­tained her work eth­ic and style of man­age­ment had kept her at the var­i­ous State en­ter­pris­es.

She said she li­aised ef­fec­tive­ly with the new board and her new line min­is­ter, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

Mc­Don­ald, in a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said she had not yet been "ap­prised" of the out­come of the board meet­ing at HDC.

"I was at Cab­i­net and then at con­stituen­cy meet­ing, so I have not been in touch or in­formed of what went on at the meet­ing," Mc­Don­ald said.

George an­swered his mo­bile phone but asked that he be con­tact­ed again with­in 20 min­utes but did not re­spond to sev­er­al suc­ces­sive calls for com­ment.

Mooni­lal al­leges po­lit­i­cal agen­da

For­mer min­is­ter of hous­ing Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has crit­i­cised the PNM for the "con­struc­tive dis­missal" of eight ex­ec­u­tives from the HDC.

"The PNM Gov­ern­ment seeks to mask their in­com­pe­tence and in­abil­i­ty to de­liv­er homes to the needy by fo­cus­ing on abus­ing man­agers. The PNM can­not build one house but will send home se­nior staff at HDC one week be­fore Christ­mas," he said.

Mooni­lal kept John as HDC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor as she was ap­point­ed by the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment.

"This is mass mis­ad­ven­ture to have eight high lev­el man­agers at the HDC con­struc­tive­ly dis­missed. It speaks vol­umes in terms of vic­tim­i­sa­tion and per­se­cu­tion of hard work­ing pub­lic of­fi­cers who have sac­ri­ficed fam­i­ly and ca­reers to serve the un­der­priv­i­leged and the needy," he said.

Mooni­lal de­scribed the dis­missals as a "De­cem­ber fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion or witch-hunt."

"I feel sor­ry for the thou­sands of cit­i­zens who would be de­nied a home for Christ­mas be­cause of the mal­ice of the PNM," he added.