Rowley not worried about 4th probe into Cleaver Heights

Keith Rowley is convinced that the Manning government is on a witch hunt trying to find something to link him to corruption.

The Diego Martin West MP was responding to Tuesday's announcement by the attorney general that there will be a forensic investigation of the Cleaver Heights Housing Project.

It's the fourth probe of the controversial government housing project that done while Rowley was housing minister.

So far forensic accountants Gerry McCaffrey, Canadian forensic investigator Robert Lindquist and the Uff Commission of Enquiry conducted investigations.

They all concluded that Rowley was in the clear and that there was no missing millions from Cleaver Heights as alleged by Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

The Uff report stated that the misinformation originated within the the National Housing Authority (NHA), which is now the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and that there might have been a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Rowley isn't worried that investigators will find anything. But he is angry at the harassment and the money that the government is spending "on this damn foolishness".

He told the Trinidad Express he would prefer that the taxpayers' money go to buying supplies for schools and hospitals.

"I have absolutely no doubt that there is an agenda behind this...This trying to find what does not exist, is so that it can be used against me," he told the paper.

He also spoke of the the events of the 2007 elections, "when the Integrity Commission behaviour was directly against me, so that I would be an unviable candidate because I was supposed to have been on a trumped up charge, when the last screening took place."

He added, "Now we are supposed to be going to the polls again and it is happening again. There are people in the PNM who have decided that they would determine what should and shouldn’t happen to me, regardless of what I do.

"So if I am not a thief they would make me a thief. If I am honest, they would make me dishonest," he declared.

Rowley stated that the housing portfolio was was "the star" in the government last election campaign. But that has changed, he said.

The Prime Minister and Minister of Housing "have single-handedly by their utterances converted HDC into a corrupt organisation, from an agency of pride to one of disgrace."