Rowley in the clear over Arima housing project

A report in the Newsday newspaper says the independent construction expert hired by the UFF enquiry into the construction sector has cleared former Trinidad and Tobago housing minister Dr Keith Rowley of wrongdoing in the Cleaver Heights affair.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning had suggested that $10 million was missing from the project under Rowley's watch when he was housing minister. But both Rowley and the contractors produced evidence to show that no money was missing and that it was a clerical error.

In an initial report, Gerry McCaffrey, of the British specialist consultancy Acutus, attributes discrepancies in the contract sum for the Housing Development Corporation to “typos and arithmetic errors” on the part of HDC staff.

Newsday quotes the report as stating, “I have formed the initial view that the smoke around the Cleaver Heights project is highly unlikely to be masking mischief...Regretfully, careless administrative errors combined with an environment of suspicion fuel controversy."

Newsday says the McCaffrey report says the errors resulted in the contract sum for the housing project being mistakenly stated as $143.4 million when it should have been $133.4 million in some HDC documents.

It adds that the contractor, NH International Caribbean Ltd (NHIC), has never attempted to make a claim for the difference of $10 million. “In my dealings with the HDC, I was given the clear impression that the contractor is being reasonable and is not trying to make anything out of slips or errors in paperwork. That is not to excuse slips and errors, but in this case, their materiality may/could be limited."

McCaffrey does note that documents appeared to have been modified in the wake of Manning’s statements in Parliament on the issue on September 30 last year.

“It looks as though they (HDC staff) have been back-fitted to match the larger erroneous contract sum. If this is deemed important it needs further investigation."

The commission is due to resume hearings on March 23. Minister of Planning Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde is tentatively due to testify on March 24.

She had attacked officials in her own department for a report submitted to the commission, saying it contained “apparent inconsistent and inaccurate information”.

Dick-Forde is not pleased with the interim McCaffrey report and told reporters Thursday this is why the government is justified in hiring a second investigator, Canadian forensic investigator Robert Lindquist

Dick-Forde said McCaffrey spent three hours with the Housing Development Corporation and was presented with over 2,000 sheets of paper. She said McCaffrey's conclusion that the 'smoke' was unlikely to be masking mischief seemed to be "premature".