GENERAL Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee, has defended his acquisition of a plot of prime seaside property at the exclusive ‘Pradoville 11’ scheme in Sparendaam, East Coast Demerara, for $1.5M, saying that he was granted a loan from the New Building Society (NBS).
Rohee made this disclosure yesterday at the party’s weekly press briefing at their Freedom House headquarters, Robb Street.
According to Rohee, who was Minister of Home Affairs under the PPP administration, Ministers who served during that time received a monthly salary of GYD$579,000, and to substantiate this he displayed one of his monthly pay slips to the media.
When asked whether other public servants could have been earning more than him, while he was Minister, the General Secretary explained that depending on the skills that public servants would have brought to the public sector, there is a possibility that they would have gotten the equivalent or in some cases more than him.
“There are two types of public servants – there are public servants on contract gratuity, and public servants on the fixed pensionable establishments,” he said, adding that depending on how long you would have worked in the public service, it is quite possible that a public servant who would have worked for years on the fixed pensionable establishment could have reached that amount.
He said also that, “There are others who were on contract gratuity who were employed on a contract depending on the skills they brought to the service, they would have gotten that or even more.”
According to Rohee, his salary then, supported by a loan from the NBS, afforded him the opportunity to secure one of the lots at Pradoville. “I got a loan from the Bank…go and check with New Building Society…check with them and you will see…King Kong ain’t got sh*t on my head,” the General Secretary blasted.
Pradoville 1 and a second section known as Pradoville 2 were developed during the tenure of former President Bharrat Jagdeo. It had been reported in sections of the media that properties in this exclusive scheme were being sold for as low as GYD$1.5M to members and supporters of the PPP.
Reports indicate that former Public Service Minister Jennifer Westford; Compton Bourne, former Head of the Caribbean Development Bank; and UG Chancellor, Ghansham Singh along with Kamini Parag-Singh and Florrie Loretta Ramnauth had all been beneficiaries of the newly-established housing scheme. Others included Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack; and former Head of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Ramesh Dookhoo.
When grilled on whether he thought it was fair to the average public servant for them to be paying the same prices for house lots as high earning public officials such as himself, Rohee told media operatives that he could not explain what criteria was used to establish the cost or how much should be paid for the properties.
“I never made that kind of investigation,” he said, adding that if he is offered a piece of land, for that amount of money, then he must determine whether he is financially capable of securing it, and if it is so, then he must consider how he is going to pay for it.
“Call it a good deal or a bad deal; it was just an investment on my part,” he said.
But according to a Kaieteur News report last week, the new Government is set to examine details of how the property which was secured by Jagdeo was later developed, and then parceled off for almost next to nothing to a few friends and Government officials.
Minister within the Ministry of Communities, Keith Scott, who is responsible for housing, had revealed that the new Administration will be examining the circumstances surrounding the distribution of the seaside property.
“Obviously we are concerned about the details of the transactions involving this piece of property. Was it in keeping with the established regulations? Was it advertised? How much was paid? We have to look at all this,” Scott is reported as telling Kaieteur News.
He further indicated that he intends to meet with the staffers of Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) “shortly” to discuss the issue.
“We are examining a lot of other details at the moment. There are many citizens who are waiting anxiously to hear about their house lots and homes. So we are, of course, interested if persons were sidelined in the process or their rights trampled on. We will keep you updated as we acquire more information,” the Minister told the daily newspaper.

By Ravin Singh