Richard Lord

Gov­ern­ment is to con­duct an­oth­er foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Cleaver Heights hous­ing project. In a state­ment in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day af­ter the lay­ing of the Re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor and the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said he rec­om­mend­ed the probe. Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence lat­er at his Ca­bil­do Cham­bers Of­fice, Je­re­mie said the en­tire is­sue in­volv­ing the Cleaver Height's project was scan­dalous. Je­re­mie said it was to the coun­try's ben­e­fit that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning raised the is­sue of an er­ro­neous $10 mil­lion dis­crep­an­cy in the cost of the project. He said the find­ings of the com­mis­sion with re­spect to the project were quite star­tling.

Je­re­mie said based on those find­ings, "a full foren­sic au­dit will be done in­to the Cleaver Heights mat­ter." He said the com­mis­sion stat­ed that it was un­able to un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances in which such an over­sight could have gone un­no­ticed for at least three years. Ac­cord­ing to Je­re­mie, the com­mis­sion raised con­cerns over oth­er is­sues with the hous­ing con­struc­tion project, which was un­der­tak­en by NH In­ter­na­tion­al (Caribbean) Ltd. He list­ed those con­cerns as a com­plete lack of ti­tle to the prop­er­ty and an ad­vance in funds the amount of $150 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment of the land when there was no ti­tle. Je­re­mie said the lat­ter mat­ter was still un­re­solved. Je­re­mie added that based on his judg­ment he has asked for "a full foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to that mat­ter."

Asked how many more in­ves­ti­ga­tions were to be con­duct­ed on the Cleaver Heights project, Je­re­mie said: "This foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Cleaver Heights is not a prod­uct of our imag­i­na­tion, it is a prod­uct of the ex­pressed find­ings in black and white of the Uff Com­mis­sion. They have raised a num­ber of ques­tions and we will get to the bot­tom of those mat­ters." Je­re­mie said Man­ning was vin­di­cat­ed by his de­ci­sion to set up the 15-month in­quiry. He said the PM was jus­ti­fied in so do­ing. He quick­ly point­ed out that sacked trade and in­dus­try min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley should not feel vin­di­cat­ed by the find­ings of the in­quiry. "I don't see how any­one who is in any­way con­nect­ed with the Cleaver Heights Project can claim to be vin­di­cat­ed or to have won in the face of the ex­pressed find­ings in black and white of the Uff com­mis­sion...That to me al­so is quite scan­dalous," he said. I don't know of any­one who can claim a vic­to­ry or vin­di­ca­tion in that mat­ter."

Row­ley said last night that Je­re­mie was en­gaged in a witch-hunt against him. The Diego Mar­tin West MP said the pro­posed foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Cleaver Heights project would be the fourth probe in­to the project. He not­ed that al­though the Uff Com­mis­sion sub­mit­ted 91 rec­om­men­da­tions, it did not in­clude any fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the project. Row­ley said he main­tained his orig­i­nal po­si­tion that Je­re­mie was "un­fit to be AG of this coun­try."

He said that was based ini­tial­ly on the AG's role in a mat­ter be­tween him (Row­ley) and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. Row­ley ques­tioned why Je­re­mie would now seek to spend more tax­pay­ers' mon­ey on a fourth probe in­to Cleaver Heights. He not­ed that $500,000 was spent on an ear­li­er probe by foren­sic ac­coun­tant Robert Lindquist and no re­port of his find­ings was sub­mit­ted by the Gov­ern­ment to date.

"Clear­ly the AG has not found what he is look­ing for and I would like to wish him well." Row­ley added. He said the cha­rade over Cleaver Heights has an­oth­er ob­jec­tive oth­er than the pub­lic in­ter­est. Row­ley said the AG's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the re­port was very dif­fer­ent to oth­ers in the coun­try. He said he chose to deal with Cleaver Heights when the Uff Com­mis­sion made sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions for crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions to be con­duct­ed on for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Ude­cott Calder Hart.