Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s award of $3.4 bil­lion in pub­lic hous­ing con­tracts to 11 con­trac­tors, push­ing back against con­cerns raised by for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is over trans­paren­cy in the process.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Alexan­der in­sist­ed that the pro­cure­ment process was con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished laws and pro­ce­dures.

“I’m not sure where the lack of trans­paren­cy would come in be­cause we op­er­ate un­der the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, so every­thing has to be trans­par­ent and above board,” he said. “I’m not sure about the two days that she’s ask­ing about. Again, that seems to be split­ting hairs. I hon­est­ly be­lieve that that is ar­gu­ing for ar­gu­ing’s sake.”

Robin­son-Reg­is had ques­tioned as­pects of the process, in­clud­ing the time­line and dis­clo­sure of de­tails sur­round­ing the con­tracts, which form part of the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er push to ex­pand hous­ing stock.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued on Mon­day, Robin­son-Reg­is said the awards had “raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about trans­paren­cy, le­gal­i­ty and the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing homes in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She said what should have been “a straight­for­ward, com­pet­i­tive and trans­par­ent pro­cure­ment process ap­pears hid­den be­hind se­cre­cy,” cit­ing what she de­scribed as ques­tion­able pre­qual­i­fi­ca­tion cri­te­ria, the ex­clu­sion of ex­pe­ri­enced lo­cal builders, and pos­si­ble breach­es of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) pre­qual­i­fied 28 con­trac­tors some­time last year to bid for de­sign-build-fi­nance ser­vices for hous­ing projects across Trinidad.

Robin­son-Reg­is said the HDC se­lect­ed “three ar­bi­trary line items from the OPR de­pos­i­to­ry” as the ba­sis for pre­qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

But Alexan­der dis­missed the crit­i­cisms, main­tain­ing that there was noth­ing wrong with the con­tracts that were is­sued.

On whether the se­lect­ed con­trac­tors have the ca­pac­i­ty to de­liv­er large-scale hous­ing de­vel­op­ments, Alexan­der ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the process.

“Ab­solute­ly, every­body should have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do as well,” he said, not­ing that past gov­ern­ments had al­so en­gaged new en­trants in the con­struc­tion sec­tor with pos­i­tive re­sults.

“Due dili­gence would have been done by the man­age­ment and board of the HDC. We have to stand with that.”

How­ev­er, the min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged he was not di­rect­ly in­volved in the se­lec­tion of the 11 con­trac­tors.

Alexan­der al­so de­clined to pro­vide specifics on the lo­ca­tions of the planned hous­ing de­vel­op­ments, an­oth­er is­sue raised by Robin­son-Reg­is.— Jesse Ramdeo