Duguid defends govt and HOPE project amid corruption claims

Senior Minister Dr William Duguid has rejected allegations by the Leader of the Opposition Ralph Thorne of corruption in the government’s controversial HOPE Housing Project, describing the claims as “absolute nonsense” and “bold-faced poppycock” in a heated debate in the House of Assembly on Tuesday.

 

Dr Duguid mounted the defence as the House of Assembly voted a resolution to rescind an earlier resolution approving the vesting of two parcels of land at Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church, following what was described as an “administrative error” in the version previously passed by Parliament.  

 

Duguid, who is Senior Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, said suggestions from Thorne that $60 million in state funding had financially benefited certain individuals were untrue.  

 

“HOPE has done a fantastic job,” Dr Duguid said of the state housing programme targeting low-income earners, which has undertaken projects at Vespera Gardens, St James; Concordia, St Philip; and Pool, St John.  

 

“There have been no infelicities, as far as I am concerned. So, when the Honourable Member talks about corruption and puts something like that into the record, it is absolute nonsense,” said Dr Duguid, who is also the Christ Church West MP.  

 

Referring to an earlier statement from Thorne that “Cabinet took up $60 million of taxpayers’ money … to enrich private individuals”, the former housing minister described this as “bold-faced poppycock” and demanded that the opposition leader provide evidence to support his claim.  

 

Offering clarification on the unfinished housing project at Pool, St John, Dr Duguid said a contract was signed for 1 000 housing units at the site, but the board of directors of HOPE had only approved the purchase of 50. He added that although the contract for the supply of 1 000 houses was later ratified by the Board, “not one cent” was disbursed.  

 

“For the Honourable Leader of the Opposition to get up and say that the Cabinet took up money, that they enriched individuals — all of these things are nothing but poppycock,” he said.  

 

Referring to the Auditor General’s report on HOPE, Dr Duguid noted that it concluded “HOPE Inc has achieved modest returns on its programmes”. He added: “He did not say a failure. He did not say that it was an absolute shame. He did not say anything about corruption or anything like that.”  

 

The senior minister with responsibility for infrastructure conceded, however, that the current administration had made some mistakes as it pursued aggressive housing policies to meet growing demand.  

 

Dr Duguid said: “Have we achieved our objective in building the number of houses that we wanted to build? Of course not. Have we built a tremendous number of houses? Yes. Lest we forget that when we were at the Ministry of Housing and during this tenure, we had a hurricane to deal with — a hurricane that destroyed hundreds of houses across this country, that caused us as a government to pause what we were doing in terms of our affordable housing programme and focus on Hurricane Elsa, the freak storm, and the few that were damaged with Hurricane Beryl.” 

 

The administration repaired approximately 1 400 houses, spending millions of dollars on emergency works that would otherwise have gone toward affordable housing, he added.  

 

“I want to be clear, and I want the people of this country to understand, we are not perfect. Perfection is for the divine; people will make mistakes, and this, from what I can see, was an administrative error,” Dr Duguid told the House. (IMC)