The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) is fac­ing pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion af­ter al­leged­ly fail­ing to pay a south con­trac­tor for six months of waste-dis­pos­al and bulk re­moval ser­vices.

Dirt B Gone Jan­i­to­r­i­al and Main­te­nance Ser­vices Ltd is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, but the HDC has re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al time to “in­ves­ti­gate” the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, own­er Al­ick An­tho­ny Charles has re­ject­ed that re­quest and is prepar­ing to take the State agency to court, say­ing the non-pay­ment has caused se­vere fi­nan­cial strain.

“I have cred­i­tors, every­body at my doorstep. I have bills to pay, plus I have work­ers to see about. They have to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion their wel­fare.

“Christ­mas is com­ing, they need to get mon­ey to car­ry home to their fam­i­lies be­cause these are low-in­come work­ers. Not al­ways I could be tak­ing mon­ey out of my own pock­et to pay them,” he said.

Charles’ at­tor­ney, Ken­neth Brad­shaw of Brad­shaw & Brad­shaw Le­gal So­lu­tions, wrote to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Hous­ing Min­istry and the HDC’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor on No­vem­ber 24 seek­ing out­stand­ing pay­ments amount­ing to over $100,000 for work at Ridge­wood Gar­dens, Phase 2, Gol­con­da.

Ac­cord­ing to Charles, he has not been paid for March, June, Ju­ly, Au­gust, Sep­tem­ber, and No­vem­ber.

Brad­shaw ar­gued that HDC’s fail­ure to pay is a breach of con­tract and vi­o­lates pub­lic pro­cure­ment prin­ci­ples, not­ing that in­voic­es marked “pay­ment pend­ing” or ap­proved have gone un­paid for months.

He in­di­cat­ed that HDC had 14 days to re­spond or face le­gal ac­tion.

HDC, in a De­cem­ber 5 re­sponse, asked that any le­gal ac­tion be held “in abeyance” for one month to al­low a com­pre­hen­sive re­ply.

Charles has re­fused, say­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion ref­er­enced is “un­par­tic­u­larised and un­sup­port­ed,” and ap­pears to be a de­lay tac­tic.

“In these cir­cum­stances, the use of the term ‘in­ves­ti­ga­tion’ with­out ex­pla­na­tion sug­gests an at­tempt to de­lay an oblig­a­tion that is al­ready due, ow­ing and ac­knowl­edged with­in HDC’s own records,” he said.

Charles, in­stead, agreed to on­ly a sev­en-day ex­ten­sion for full pay­ment, in­ter­est, and costs.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee said he was un­aware of the mat­ter.

HDC’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment, how­ev­er, in­di­cat­ed that the query was sent to its Le­gal De­part­ment, but no re­sponse was re­ceived.

—Sascha Wil­son