Kristy Ram­nar­ine

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sen­a­tor De­vant Ma­haraj has writ­ten to In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Jus­tice Melville Baird re­quest­ing an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Cab­i­net.

His re­quest is re­lat­ed to the al­lo­ca­tion of Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (HDC) units to two Gov­ern­ment MPs and a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor last year.

In­tegri­ty com­mis­sion reg­is­trar Jas­mine Pas­cal, in a let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 19, 2018, ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of Ma­haraj’s re­quest. “This mat­ter has been re­ferred to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for con­sid­er­a­tion,” Pas­cal wrote.

Nine days pri­or, on Jan­u­ary 11, Ma­haraj wrote to Baird call­ing for the probe.

“Giv­en that per­sons have been wait­ing for sev­er­al years to ac­quire a sim­i­lar hous­ing unit from the HDC, it begs the ques­tion how did these three PNM po­lit­i­cal ap­pointees ob­tain units be­fore oth­ers?” Ma­haraj wrote.

Ma­haraj list­ed Tourism Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Ayana Web­ster-Roy and Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Nigel De Fre­itas as the re­cip­i­ents of the units. He ded­i­cat­ed over three pages of his five-page let­ter to ad­dress is­sues with De Fre­itas in par­tic­u­lar, not­ing that the po­si­tion hold­er is nei­ther en­ti­tled to a hous­ing al­lowance or qual­i­fy for hous­ing in lieu of a hous­ing al­lowance un­der the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) reg­u­la­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the 98th Re­port of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion, the hold­ers of the of­fices of Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent deputy speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives are en­ti­tled to al­lowances un­der the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories:

(i) En­ti­tle­ment to the cost of ac­com­mo­da­tion and meals in the event that the of­fice hold­er is re­quired to stay overnight as a re­sult of late sit­tings of Par­lia­ment, pro­vid­ed that he/she re­sides be­yond a ra­dius of six­teen (16) kilo­me­tres from Port-of-Spain.

(ii) For trav­el to To­ba­go/Trinidad on of­fi­cial busi­ness, the cost of ac­com­mo­da­tion and meals, as nec­es­sary, to be met by the State.

(iii) Trav­el/ac­com­mo­da­tion ex­pens­es, in­clud­ing meals, in­curred by the spouse of an of­fice hold­er in To­ba­go/Trinidad when at­tend­ing of­fi­cial func­tions in Trinidad/To­ba­go to be met by the State.

(iv) For trav­el abroad on of­fi­cial busi­ness, the pro­vi­sions of Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Cir­cu­lar No. 2 dat­ed April 7, 2006 or oth­er rel­e­vant Cir­cu­lar to ap­ply.

How­ev­er, on De­cem­ber 15, 2017, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell, re­spond­ing in writ­ing to a ques­tion seek­ing in­for­ma­tion on what date Cab­i­net ap­proved a hous­ing fa­cil­i­ty for De Fre­itas, said: “Cab­i­net, by Minute no. 468 of March 16th, 2017, agreed that Sen­a­tor Nigel De Fre­itas would be al­lo­cat­ed one (1) two-bed­room unit at the Vic­to­ria Keys Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment, Diego Mar­tin, from the re­spec­tive date of oc­cu­pan­cy to the re­spec­tive date he ceas­es to hold of­fice as Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate or oth­er­wise de­ter­mined by Gov­ern­ment.”

Ma­haraj, in his let­ter, in­sist­ed that the Con­sti­tu­tion does not con­tem­plate that the Cab­i­net set terms and con­di­tions for Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment or any oth­er of­fi­cer of state. He went on to state that the ac­tions of the Cab­i­net in award­ing the HDC unit to the Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent may al­so be con­sti­tut­ed as a ma­te­r­i­al breach of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the code of con­duct of Sec­tions 23, 24 and 27 re­spec­tive­ly of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic in Life Act.

Ma­haraj end­ed his let­ter by urg­ing the com­mis­sion to take im­me­di­ate steps to re­view the is­sue.