SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kwei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion of rent­ing an emp­ty One Alexan­dra build­ing for five years whose main oc­cu­pants were not ten­ants but spi­ders, lizards and mos­qui­toes.

The an­gry re­sponse came from Row­ley dur­ing the Prime Min­is­ter's Ques­tions in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives af­ter Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles asked the PM why the Gov­ern­ment did not take some mon­ey from the $20 mil­lion the Gov­ern­ment pays an­nu­al­ly in rent for "One Alexan­dra" and oth­er prop­er­ties and put it to­wards the Ben La­m­ond Ear­ly Child­hood Cen­tre which is 99 per cent com­plete and over­grown with grass.

It was re­port­ed that the fam­i­ly of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi takes in $20 mil­lion a year in rent from the State for four prop­er­ties.

Charles told Row­ley that his Gov­ern­ment had their pri­or­i­ties all wrong.

Row­ley said when his Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice they met no school that was 99 per cent com­plet­ed, stat­ing that Charles was ped­dling fab­ri­cat­ed in­for­ma­tion..

"If the five years of pay­ing that you and your friends paid at One Alexan­dra...five years you paid rent there with­out us­ing the build­ing for one hour," Row­ley shot back.

Row­ley told Charles if the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship had used tax­pay­ers' mon­ey wise­ly he would not be talk­ing about the Ben La­m­ond School to­day.

"Un­like what we have done...any place we have rent­ed we pro­ceed to use. Your gov­ern­ment...five years rent­ed One Alexan­dra place and mos­qui­to, spi­der and lizard were the on­ly oc­cu­pants of that build­ing for five years."

The PM said Charles had to gall to come in the House to talk about One Alexan­dra and this Gov­ern­ment.

" When we by con­tract used One Alexan­dra we rent­ed it and we are us­ing it."