The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date for Barataria/San Juan Sad­dam Ho­sein has called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged award of con­tracts to peo­ple in mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies who are linked to the PNM by the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny.

At a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Ho­sein said he had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion about Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­dates be­ing in­struct­ed to make rec­om­men­da­tions for the award of con­tracts in the se­lect­ed ar­eas un­der a mi­cro-pro­cure­ment process.

“That is ab­solute­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and bor­ders on il­le­gal­i­ty and that war­rants a full and com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and al­so Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor,” he said.

“This mat­ter is ex­ceed­ing­ly wor­ry­ing, we are two weeks shy of a gen­er­al elec­tion and the gov­ern­ment, we have ev­i­dence, are us­ing State re­sources for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es and ad­vance their po­lit­i­cal agen­da.”

The RDC, which falls un­der the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment head­ed by Faris Al-Rawi, is a spe­cial-pur­pose en­ter­prise es­tab­lished to pro­vide es­sen­tial fa­cil­i­ties by en­gag­ing small and medi­um-sized con­trac­tors in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

Ho­sein, who de­clared that he “can nei­ther be bought or can nei­ther be in­tim­i­dat­ed,” urged the RDC’s CEO, Ja­son Kissoon, to break his si­lence on the al­leged mis­con­duct at the com­pa­ny.

“Mr Kissoon you know what is hap­pen­ing at the RDC. We urge you to come clean and tell us what is hap­pen­ing, you will be pro­tect­ed. Come for­ward and give the in­for­ma­tion be­cause we have cer­tain in­for­ma­tion that was brought to our at­ten­tion with what is tak­ing place at the RDC.”

Ho­sein, who is the Op­po­si­tion’s shad­ow At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter al­so al­leged there were ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties with the process for award­ing con­tracts.

He said: “We have in­for­ma­tion where con­trac­tors were com­ing with­in five per cent of the en­gi­neer’s es­ti­mate. It can­not be a co­in­ci­dence where over 147 con­tracts award­ed by the RDC fell with­in 3.5 per cent of the en­gi­neer’s es­ti­mate. The en­gi­neer’s es­ti­mate is a con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ment.”

He al­so claimed con­tracts were award­ed to fam­i­lies who were close to se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and an in­di­vid­ual linked to three com­pa­nies which ben­e­fit­ted from RDC con­tracts.

“In fact, I’m told the Prime Min­is­ter would have at­tend­ed his wed­ding,” he said.

Ho­sein al­so claimed the RDC award­ed con­tracts for var­i­ous con­struc­tion projects worth mil­lions of dol­lars to three com­pa­nies.

“A com­pa­ny that has its reg­is­tra­tion ad­dress, ac­cord­ing to the Com­pa­ny’s Reg­istry, at 69 Third Av­enue, Barataria, but they are get­ting con­tracts in com­mu­ni­ties out­side of Barataria against the core prin­ci­ples of the RDC.”

Ho­sein fur­ther al­leged that some­one linked to one of the com­pa­nies al­so pur­chased a lux­u­ry ve­hi­cle from a for­mer se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial.

Al-Rawi dis­missed Ho­sein’s claims and as­sured that op­er­a­tions at the RDC were con­duct­ed above board.

“The Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny is a com­pa­ny which has a board of di­rec­tors ... I as min­is­ter have no in­struc­tions to that com­pa­ny as it should be and there­fore I am con­fi­dent they can with­stand the scruti­ny that they must be­cause that is the law,” he said.

“I come back to the point that Sad­dam Ho­sein is very much en­gaged in a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign.”