Sascha Wil­son

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day he has been forced to re­turn his Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion-leased Range Rover HSE be­cause of se­cu­ri­ty threats as a re­sult of re­ports pub­lished in the T&T Guardian. Mooni­lal made the com­ment at the in­stal­la­tion of the new HDC's board at Union Hall, San Fer­nan­do, when asked about a T&T Guardian sto­ry yes­ter­day, which not­ed that his re­quest to out­fit the $24,000-a-month ve­hi­cle with siren and flash­ing blue lights was ini­tial­ly turned down by Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Reuben Cato.

Mooni­lal, who ar­rived at the func­tion in the Range Rover, said: "I took note of the re­port. I have asked the HDC to take back the ve­hi­cle and I have asked them to con­tact the Guardian and ask them to rec­om­mend a ve­hi­cle for me, be­cause they have in­ter­viewed some un­known me­chan­ic who made some com­ments about the ve­hi­cle, so we are ask­ing the Guardian to rec­om­mend an ap­pro­pri­ate ve­hi­cle for me to use."The min­is­ter said the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice al­so had "in­ter­nal cor­re­spon­dence" about the se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns which he would be tak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Ltd in a day.He ac­cused the T&T Guardian and in­ves­tiga­tive re­porter Denyse Renne, who wrote the re­ports, of putting his life and his fam­i­ly's lives at risk."Since the Guardian has start­ed this cam­paign against me, we have had some se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns now, where our ve­hi­cle is known in the pub­lic," Mooni­lal said."Peo­ple are stop­ping us on the high­ways, con­gre­gat­ing around the ve­hi­cle wher­ev­er I go and it is pos­ing a se­cu­ri­ty threat. I am very dis­turbed that the Trinidad Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny and the Guardian has ex­posed my­self and fam­i­ly to se­cu­ri­ty threats," he said.

Mooni­lal claims life in dan­ger

The T&T Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny was the for­mer name of Guardian Me­dia Ltd. He added: "As I said in the pre­sen­ta­tion, when you are a Min­is­ter of Hous­ing you are the land­lord of crim­i­nal el­e­ments."There are cer­tain parts of Port-of-Spain where there are peo­ple who do work in the hous­ing sec­tor who are peo­ple with very long crim­i­nal records. "This is part of it and those peo­ple from time-to- time need to see me for dif­fer­ent things."Say­ing it was not wise for a Hous­ing Min­is­ter to be in a pri­vate car, he said:"I did not want it to come to this but af­ter see­ing what they had done to­day, I think it was hor­ri­ble that peo­ple will ex­pose me and my wife to that lev­el of threats, where per­sons with crim­i­nal records will know what ve­hi­cle I use and will be able to ap­proach me any­where."

Mooni­lal said he was break­ing no law or pol­i­cy and it was a tragedy that the Guardian "has ex­posed me to this risk now where my wife can­not go any­where in that ve­hi­cle. I can­not dri­ve it cer­tain­ly, no."Asked if he had re­ceived any threats, he said: "The kind of peo­ple we deal with in the hous­ing sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly in some ar­eas, their very pres­ence is threat­en­ing enough." He said there were 25 con­di­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with ob­tain­ing the Range Rover and he had abid­ed by them. Not­ing that Renne was the re­porter re­ferred to in the Sec­tion 34 e-mail scan­dal, he said she "is on a cam­paign to hound me down, where my se­cu­ri­ty is now threat­ened.

"I would like the Guardian and that par­tic­u­lar re­porter to know that it is very ter­ri­ble to con­duct this kind of cam­paign," he said, adding that he was not in­volved in the "fab­ri­ca­tion of the e-mail."Asked whether his new ve­hi­cle would be out­fit­ted with sirens and strobe lights, he said: "I can­not talk about se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments. I am al­so a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. "In fact, when we talk about se­cu­ri­ty, peo­ple con­demn us, and when we don't they still con­demn us," he added.