Who told Manning about a missing $10M?

Who told Prime Minister Patrick Manning about missing millions from the Cleaver Heights Housing project in Arima?

That's the question the chairman of the UDeCOTT inquiry wanted answered Tuesday when former Housing Development Corporation (HDC) chief Noel Garcia and other housing officials appeared before the commission.

Prof. John Uff asked Garcia who told Manning about a million-dollar discrepancy if he only learned about an alleged problem after Manning stood up in Parliament and asked about it.

Uff asked HDC officials about the confusion over an HDC note on April 11, 2005 which raised the issue of a $10 million discrepancy.

The officials told Uff they became aware of the matter only when it became public knowledge and they said they could not say who told Manning about any of the details.

The other intriguing issue was that no one from the HDC could say who wrote the April 2005 note that Manning used to talk missing money. They suggested that although the "error" showed up in HDC documents it did not originate within the HDC.

Manning first spoke of missing money in Parliament on September 30, 2008.

"Where the money gone?” he asked, noting that he had received correspondence on the project from Planning and Development Minister Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde detailing the mysterious error.

“Try as I may, as of now, I have been given no proper explanation for this; $10 million just missing...I have a question to ask the Member for Diego Martin West since I could not get the answer nowhere else: Where the money gone? Where it gone?” Manning said.

There is no evidence that any money was every missing. Garcia explained it was just "a human error" in making the calculations

Dick-Forde had rejected an HDC report that cleared up the matter and had said the ministry would conduct a new investigation to be done by Canadian forensic investigator Bob Lindquist.

Garcia told the inquiry Lindquist interviewed him on the matter and he gave Lindquist a written statement.