ECONOMIC Affairs Minister Guy Joseph has responded to remarks regarding a contract allegedly awarded to a member of his political party under the Community Development Programme (CDP) amounting to thousands of dollars.
Minutes before the start of Tuesday’s House meeting to debate several money matters, Joseph gave reporters, one of whom brought up the awarding of a contract to the party member in question, a history lesson on how the process of individual contract for community projects works.
According to Joseph, CDP projects are designed to do a number of things to help address problems in rural communities. However, unless certain rules are attached to the awarding of CDP projects and are followed across the board, things may as well be left as they are right now.
Seemingly exasperated by the persistency of reporters wanting his views on nepotism and, in particular, this matter, and whether the member has the competency to do masonry — which would be required due to the nature of the contract, or has a related skill — Joseph gave this response.
“If people want to question her qualifications in terms of her being able to do that project, then it must be across the board, because I keep on saying in this country, we choose to target individuals on the basis of their affiliations or perceived affiliations,” Joseph said.
He added: “If we are to scrutinize who is better qualified to do CDP projects, then let’s do it across the board, because I can show you hundreds of projects that I paid (for) done by people who may not have had the prerequisite skills.”
He agrees that certain rules should be applied to the awarding of contracts under the CDP. However, he believes people should not target an individual for not being competent or qualified for a certain job under the CDP. He described projects under the CDP as “very basic projects.”
“You can get a painting job but you are not necessarily a painter. However, you can get somebody to do the painting for you. A lot of CDP projects are issued to persons who hire a qualified person to do the work,” Joseph said.
To justify his stance on the contentious matter relating to the party member, Joseph said the Ministry – the Ministry of Economic Development — undertakes supervision of the CDP projects and makes a determination on the quality of work done under the programme.
“If the project does not meet the specifications of the job, the person cannot get paid,” Joseph said, noting that the technical people in the Ministry inspect the work done to determine whether the government gets value for its money.”
