By Andre Bagoo Tuesday, December 8 2009

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Attorney, client privilege: Attorney Margaret Rose pays close attention to her client Dr Keith Rowley at the Uff Commission of Inquiry, Winsure Buildi...

ERRORS that may have resulted in a $10 million discrepancy in the contract sum for the Cleaver Heights Housing project were likely due to constraints in resources and not to “any intention to provide improper financial benefits to any party involved”, according to the former managing director of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) Noel Garcia.

In a five-page statement dated December 5 but distributed yesterday, Garcia, who is expected to testify in the Uff Commission of Inquiry today, defends the activities of the HDC in relation to the Cleaver Heights housing project which once fell under the portfolio of Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley. Rowley served as housing minister from 2003 to 2007. In his statement, Garcia says that in the rush to pursue the Government’s objective of 8,000 houses per year, the HDC, formerly known as the National Housing Authority (NHA), may have run into organisational difficulty.

“This mandate was being undertaken by an organisation with limited staff and with administrative pressure to get the job done.System and procedural changes and proper documentation were therefore a work in progress,” he says.

“If mistakes were made or omissions surfaced in the systems and procedures and documentation that were involved or brought into being in meeting the demands placed upon the NHA/HDC while I was there, including in relation to the Cleaver Heights Development Project, these were made in consequence of these demands and the constraints I have described,” Garcia argues, “not by any reason of any intention to provide improper financial benefits to any party involved.”

Garcia, currently the Estate Management and Business Development Corporation (EMBDC) chairman, argues that no impropriety took place at the HDC, whose affairs have been brought under scrutiny because of allegations of a missing $10 million on the Cleaver Heights Housing project made by Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

“It is to be observed that in the thousands of contracts awarded while I was at the NHA/HDC, no allegations of impropriety arose of which I am aware,” Garcia, who served under Rowley’s tenure, said. “The NHA/HDC was subject to audits by the Auditor General, numerous appearances before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament and there was an Internal Audit Department that reported to the Board of Directors. It is again to be observed that while I was at the NHA/HDC, no questions of impropriety or lack of accountability were raised of which I am aware.”

Former HDC chairman and PNM treasurer Louis Andre Monteil, who had been summoned to give evidence on the project by the commissioners, will not attend this week’s proceedings, counsel for the inquiry Kerwin Garcia announced yesterday.

At yesterday’s hearing, inquiry chairman Prof John Uff, who had previously said the issue of the $10 million discrepancy in the project was “dead”, said the issue was now revitalised given the inquiry’s newly expanded mandate.

“We’ve received requests from a number of parties inviting us to re-open the first Cleaver Heights issue in relation to the contractual issues,” he said. “There is going to be more evidence on...the discrepancy in the contract sum.” He noted that the discrepancy could be traced back to an error in HDC paperwork, but said the commissioners would like to make a final determination on the matter. “It’s a matter that I do want to get on with,” he said.

Alvin Fitzpatrick QC, attorney for Cleaver Heights contractor NH International (Caribbean) Ltd, argued that the housing project had no major issues that warrant the scrutiny of a commission of inquiry.