Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues, announced this afternoon that a number of persons have been arrested as part of a probe of alleged acts of corruption at the Housing Ministry.
In a statement on her Facebook page, the Minister explained that on her instructions, one of her staffers had been working along with the Police to uncover “solid evidence” of corrupt practices in the allocation of house lots involving staffers of the Ministry and persons outside the Ministry.
She said several arrests were made as a result of that probe. The Government Minister distanced her staffer that assisted the Police from being involved in any fraudulent practices. She described the young man as a “patriot” and dismissed allegations made on social media that he too may have been involved in a house lot bribery scam.
She complained that the young man’s photo was published, along with the allegation that he has been receiving bribes in exchange for land, while not a shred of evidence was provided.
The Minister said the reckless and vindictive postings on social media, have now compromised months of tedious investigative work which could have potentially led to more arrests.
“I have always maintained that I am committed to rooting out corruption. In this regard, strident steps were taken to work with the Police to address this wherever it exists in the Ministry. Regrettably, members of the public continue to encourage the practice of offering bribes and willingly participate in these illegal transactions. When they lose their money without receiving the favours they expected, they take to social media to complain, instead of going to the police. There is little or nothing we can do with social media postings that bear no evidence”, the Minister said.
She admitted that “eliminating corruption from a Ministry that distributes land is a near impossible task, but we can reduce it significantly with help from law-abiding citizens”.
She called on members of the public to desist from participating in bribery, adding that they should provide whatever information they have on fraud at the Ministry to the Police for it to conduct its probe.
The Permanent Secretary of the Housing Ministry has announced an investigation into the claims that a number of staffers at the Ministry were involved in a bribery for house lot scam.
An avalanche of allegations with photographs, text messages and even video recordings, surfaced on social media this week, implicating a number of Ministry staffers in accepting bribe payments to allocate land to those who were willing to pay.
The Opposition has called for a full and detailed probe of the scam.
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