Robinson-Regis challenges housing ministers to answer for HDC contracts

For­mer Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is has chal­lenged Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der to ex­plain how the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) vet­ted con­trac­tors se­lect­ed for a $3.48 bil­lion hous­ing pro­gramme, af­ter an Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) in­quiry found de­fi­cien­cies in the process.

Robin­son-Reg­is said Alexan­der’s claim that the con­trac­tors were pre-qual­i­fied did not ad­dress the OPR’s find­ings, which in­clud­ed in­ad­e­quate ev­i­dence of fi­nan­cial and tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments and 30 pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion ap­provals grant­ed on the day ap­pli­ca­tions were sub­mit­ted.

Alexan­der dis­missed claims raised by Robin­son-Reg­is in Par­lia­ment dur­ing a vis­it to a hous­ing com­mu­ni­ty on Sun­day.

“All of it is wrong. All of it is hearsay, in­nu­en­do, straw man re­port­ing,” he said.

He main­tained that the con­trac­tors were reg­is­tered and pre-qual­i­fied through the OPR sys­tem and that the HDC con­duct­ed ad­di­tion­al due dili­gence be­fore fi­nal­is­ing con­tracts.

How­ev­er, the OPR re­port raised con­cerns about a sup­pli­er whose com­pa­ny pro­file in­di­cat­ed it was in­sol­vent, in re­ceiver­ship or fac­ing wind­ing-up pro­ceed­ings, but was still pre-qual­i­fied.

Robin­son-Reg­is said the is­sue was not whether new con­trac­tors should get op­por­tu­ni­ties, but whether they were prop­er­ly as­sessed be­fore be­ing en­trust­ed with bil­lions in pub­lic funds.

She called on Alexan­der to pro­duce ev­i­dence that the re­quired due dili­gence was con­duct­ed, ar­gu­ing that the OPR’s find­ings could not be an­swered with po­lit­i­cal as­sur­ances.