Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues today said although the Ministry of Housing received numerous complaints about corrupt land transactions in 2023, it was only able to terminate the service of a single employee, due to the lack of concrete evidence to support the other allegations.
Together with the Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal, Minister Rodrigues urged Guyanese who were lured into paying bribes in exchange for house-lots to come forward. However, she said in the absence of solid evidence, there is not much the Ministry of Housing or the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) could do to address the complaints.
“There were a number of allegations leveled at several staff members but you would appreciate that we cannot take definitive action based on allegations. Obviously, we would examine these individuals more closely. There were engagements with them, they were interviewed in house to find if they are willing to offer any explanations as to why these allegations are being made against them but obviously, if you don’t have proof of any corrupted activities, there is no possibility for us to just to terminate somebody based on allegation,” Minister Rodrigues said.
The Minister said in the case of the employee, whose services were terminated, the Ministry had strong evidence that she was soliciting money from persons to fast track their land application.
That matter, the minister said, has been handed over to the Police.
“We were able to get evidence on one employee. She was arrested; she was questioned and I believe put on bail. The last I know, that the file is with the DPP. So, I assume the police is waiting for the return of that file before charging her,” Minister Rodrigues said.
During a number of revelations about alleged corrupt practices, a member of Minister Rodrigues’ secretariat was named as a person of interest. However, the Minister said there was no evidence of any wrongdoing put forward against the young man, and she will therefore continue to defend him and his job.
“That employee that you say that I defended, I merely presented the facts. That employee was the employee that was approached by the other employee, who was subsequently arrested. So, he facilitated the investigation with the police. When she approached him to set up a scheme to help her to get house-lots to allocate other people, he reported the matter to me. I advised him to report it immediately to the police. We called in the police, we gave all the information to the police and the sting was set up,” Minister Rodrigues said.
Minister Collin Croal said the CH&PA and by extension the entire Ministry of Housing, have put a number of measures in place to prevent corrupt practices.
Applications can be tracked online, and the Minister reminded that allocations are only done at the level of Land Administration and not by junior staffers.
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