Derek Achong

The Gov­ern­ment has ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion against nine for­mer of­fi­cials of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) on al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion dur­ing their tenure.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed that the law­suit had been filed on Wednes­day af­ter­noon (See page A6), At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said it was the first to arise out of ex­ten­sive au­dits and in­ves­ti­ga­tions or­dered by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice in Sep­tem­ber last year.

"In this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter there are nine de­fen­dants, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials and per­sons who have had con­trol of cer­tain en­ti­ties of the State.

The na­ture of mat­ters sur­round the core of cor­rup­tion, un­just en­rich­ment, the breach of cer­tain du­ties but it is square­ly de­signed to tack­le cor­rup­tion, mis­man­age­ment and to ask peo­ple to ac­count for what they have done," Al-Rawi said.

While Al-Rawi re­peat­ed­ly said he could not re­veal the par­ties named in the law­suit and the wrong­do­ing they are al­leged to have com­mit­ted as the case was at a sen­si­tive stage, the T&T Guardian un­der­stands it in­volves for­mer of­fi­cials of HDC, a State-run com­pa­ny which falls un­der the Min­istry of Hous­ing.

"You would know that some time ago I al­so made a com­mit­ment not to do what my pre­de­ces­sors had done, which is to give chap­ter and verse and cam­paign­ing in re­la­tion to lit­i­ga­tion re­al­ly be­cause we are adamant that due process ought to be fol­lowed and that the courts will be the ul­ti­mate ar­biter of the mat­ters which are un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion," Al-Rawi said.

Though he was tight-lipped on the is­sue, Al-Rawi did ad­mit the law­suit was a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar claim.

"It in­volves sev­er­al hun­dreds of mil­lion of dol­lars in trans­ac­tions which is un­der po­si­tion and there are dam­ages re­quest­ed on top of that," he said.

Al-Rawi al­so said the same ap­proach used in the case would ap­ply to of­fi­cials of his Gov­ern­ment, in the event they were sim­i­lar­ly ac­cused of cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ties.

"Un­der­stand this, the ap­proach this Gov­ern­ment takes is if you find wrong­do­ing in your own Gov­ern­ment it will be dealt with in equal mea­sure. Cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment is some­thing I think does not know bound­aries," he said.

He al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism over the Gov­ern­ment's chances of suc­ceed­ing in the case, which is yet to be list­ed by the Ju­di­cia­ry for hear­ing.

"I can tell you that we are ab­solute­ly cer­tain and very con­fi­dent in what we have brought in the courts al­ready. We are al­so very con­fi­dent that the oth­er mat­ters we have in gear will be man­aged very short­ly," he said.

In ad­di­tion to the civ­il claim, Al-Rawi re­vealed that crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions may al­so arise from the Gov­ern­ment's in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

"You would have heard Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and I both speak that there are some mat­ters we will have con­trol of and some mat­ters that are be­yond our con­trol, mean­ing that they are in pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al hands of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP)," he said.

In De­cem­ber last year, HDC chair­man New­man George and the cor­po­ra­tion's board de­cid­ed to send its then man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jear­lean John and six se­nior man­agers on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave to fa­cil­i­tate an au­dit.

In April, the sev­en of­fi­cials' con­tracts were ter­mi­nat­ed by the board but the re­sults of the au­dit were nev­er made pub­lic. John and some of the dis­missed man­agers have sued for wrong­ful dis­missal.

The T&T Guardian was un­able to con­firm if John and the man­agers were among the nine of­fi­cials sub­ject to the law­suit as a le­gal source close to them said none of them had been served with any court doc­u­ments up to late yes­ter­day.