AFC’s Region 6 councillor, Haseef Yusuff, has called for the resignation of another AFC councillor, Rohan Jaggassar, after he was accused of approaching Hardat Singh for monies on more than one occasion to sign an approval certificate for payment for work done. But Singh, who is contracted to clean canals in Black Bush Polder, said he never paid any money to Jaggassar, despite several requests from the councillor after the issue was brought to the Region 6 Regional Democratic Council (RDC) on Thursday last.

Yusuff said that there was enough evidence to link the councillor to the corrupt practice of demanding monies as bribes from the contractor, even after hearing the explanations offered by the AFC councillor.

“This councillor never brought this to the attention of the RDC, at any time that this contractor or any contractor was involved in doing sub-standard work. He signed and certified all the works that he visited. The said contractor gave a written statement which was read at the meeting. We always blame the government for sub-standard work, but the question is, how can we really blame the government when opposition councillors are certifying work that they know is sub-standard?”, he noted.

Yusuff was of the opinion that the AFC leadership need to call for his resignation at least to facilitate an investigation into the allegations against him, because it is the decent thing to do.

He chided his colleague councillor for seeking “out of desperation” to share blame with regard to why he approved substandard work, as Jagassar sought to distance himself from the bribery and corruption charges.

“Now this councillor is claiming that he is being framed because that contractor is guilty of sub-standard work, which he certified as being correct, according to the stipulations in the contract. This AFC councillor claimed that the vice-chairman, who is the head of the Works Committee, instructed him to accept the work even if it was 80% correct. In other words, this councillor is willing to rob taxpayers 20% of the monies that they have contributed to the economic and social development of our country. This is unacceptable from any councilor, especially one from the opposition party. Every day we are hearing about the poor quality of work executed by contractors, but all these works were also certified by opposition councilors. Are they not culpable?” he quizzed.