Fixin’ T&T: Rowley must remove Marlene McDonald immediately


The following is a press release from Fixin’ T&T, which calls for the immediate removal of Housing Minister Marlene McDonald pending an investigation into her conduct:

Photo: Minister of Housing Marlene McDonald. (Copyright Andy Hypolite/Trinidad Guardian)
Photo: Minister of Housing Marlene McDonald.
(Copyright Andy Hypolite/Trinidad Guardian)

FIXIN’ T&T insists that Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley immediately remove Ms Marlene McDonald as a Government Minister pending the outcome of investigations into the allegations levelled against her.

This, in light of the admission made yesterday (Monday 11, 2015) by the Housing Minister about enquiries she made in 2008 as to the status of an application made to the HDC by someone with whom she had a personal relationship.

It is the only appropriate action that can be taken if the PM is true to his campaign promises of restoring decency along with good, honest, transparent and accountable governance to Trinidad and Tobago.

For any Government Minister to suggest that direct enquiries into a matter such as this would not wield influence, is naive at best and perhaps dishonest at worst; even if it is not within his/her own ministry.

Ms McDonald’s statement yesterday begs more questions that need to be answered.

FIXIN’ T&T expects this probe to be fair, efficient and expeditious.

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About Fixin TT

Fixin T&T's mission is the realization of good governance to achieve healthy, holistic, and fulfilling lifestyles for all citizens through the study, promotion, and furtherance of strong democratic institutions; sound infrastructure; integrity in public and corporate affairs; and a culture of respect by all for the laws and regulations of the country to create a safe, secure, efficient and productive Trinidad & Tobago.

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505 comments

  1. Who knows? It could be that Manning and all tell Dick-Forde give out houses to people who help PNM win the 2007 election. Marlene admit to asking the status of the application because she know it inside long time.

  2. The letter may not be real because Moonilal still has some of his mischief makers at the HDC.

  3. I didn’t say the letter wasn’t real – Sturge and others have been going on the premise that the letter was written by Marlene’s assistant to HDC management when it wasn’t so. The Minister of Housing at the time, through her assistant made the request.

  4. Moonilal still has some of his people at HDC, he could get anyone to do it.

  5. But the letter says to allocate a house to him!
    This is pure mischief.

  6. Yes, she made an enquiry. The Minister of Housing got the allocation to happen – was the Minister bound to do it?

  7. Actually, it’s the Advisor to the Minister of Housing who wrote to the Allocations Manager at HDC. See my post below.

  8. Anybody could have penned that letter recently to set up Marlene,especially someone who was sent on leave pending the audit.

  9. According to the article I’m posting, Odetta Alexander was actually the advisor to the Minister of Planning, housing & The Environment at the time, Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde:

    http://legacy.guardian.co.tt/archives/2008-03-22/business2.html

  10. Scenario: $6 million lotto draw. The winner is the NLCB chairman’s common-law wife.
    His response: So my boo can’t buy a ticket too?
    Any issues?

  11. Kyon when you say “single people”, you mean single parents or just singles?

  12. So am can we stop the HDC from giving single people houses now?

  13. What wife?
    Women came forward and reported that Bress-Man Glenn promised them HDC houses for suck prick.

    Lasana ah could say “suck prick” right?

  14. So Kyon, if Glenn Ramadharsingh had gotten a house for his wife which she then promptly rented… No issue? Somehow I doubt that.

  15. We need to change and strengthen the system

  16. All yuh remember Bress-Man Glenn right?
    I’ll say no more!

  17. For Dr. Rowley and our newly elected government.

  18. Well let her show us all the other letters she wrote in support of all the other people who came to her asking for houses. And let us hear all the reasons she put in her letters why said people should get houses.
    And if Ministers and MPs running around getting houses for people, the HDC really should stop with their public key distribution charades as evidence that the process is transparent.

    • @chabeth I think they should stop it regardless. And this process is nonsense. Even if two ppl are married, and one person who does not have their name on property applies and gets through with an HDC house, it does not mean the other person does not own property, and that they not going to rent it out. Or that one of them may have inherited a house but their name not on it. And ppl would definitely use any connection to get a house whether they need it or not and rent it out if they not using it. The system is set up to exploit such loopholes. On top of that, they not going to declare rent as income so we lose out on tax $.

  19. Lol I know about the first part re: donation, I just never thought of it possibly being used to pay for the house. A whole nother side to that story now if that could be true.

  20. However I believe the man should not have been given a house if he had no dependents

    Legally he was not the husband

  21. I’m merely saying ppl go to MPs and ask for help getting houses

    What do u think the MP does to help the person?

    Pray?

    She was not the minister of housing at the time

  22. This is all common knowledge Nerisha, even before the GE.

  23. Kyon Esdelle, you serious? You cannot blame somebody for abusing their power to call in a favour for real estate for the person they screwing? You serious? You think that should be the norm?? That that is blameless behavior?! You see nothing wrong with that?

  24. How I see this is Mr Carew via Calabar Foundation received $500+K from the Min of Social Dev (or whatever it was called at the time) for the construction of Community Centres. Firstly, the NGO was registered after the chqs were cut. Could this $535K (I think it was) have gone to paying for the house in full? Adrian Clarke…help!

  25. Don’t blame me for the governance model

    I actually proposing changes but I ain’t from your generation nor do I have power

  26. It just now dawned on me that like integrity, ethics isn’t a concept that Trinidadians are naturally familiar with.

  27. Kyon Esdelle which is why I keep saying leave politics and politicians out of the distribution process. Why not have a committee which includes members of NGOs to sort through applications and distribute houses and do away with the obvious political conflict of intetest by allowing the minister to distribute up to 20% of houses built with our taxpayer dollars! And we need to consider that building and allocation can affect outcome of elections-which is the intent, clearly.

  28. Ok thanks for the answers. Now let’s hear from the marlene defenders. lol

  29. Influencing the outcome of a tender

  30. Same thing ….. conflict of interest.
    Fuad, like Marlene would have used his position in government to look after the interests of a loved one.

  31. The problem is the hdc housing model and the governance model

    I can’t blame a minister for asking

    I will blame a minister for granting stuff in a ministry the minister controls unethically

  32. I can’t get stopped on the PBR and tell the police to hold Dana’s killer before they give me a ticket.

  33. Hang who you ketch! When there is enough info to press charges on Moonie, then he will go down too

  34. Lasana Liburd, it nuh over until the fat lady sings….

  35. Hahahahahahaa. Anyone else care to take a stab?

  36. Huge diff

    The state is the client in the contract bid and the son is making a profit

    In this case the spouse is the client and the state isn’t losing money

  37. So let us do an experiment. Let’s ‘imagine’ that Fuad as then minister of health made a call to glenn as them minister of the people to ‘inquire’ about an application his son’s company had for a tv ad bid. Let’s go on to imagine that we eventually found out that fuad’s son’s company got the contract. What would you say to that?

  38. Moonilal run so much racket in HDC and all you all could talk about is Marlene’s equiry about a house.

  39. If nothing about this situation is an anomaly for Marlene and asking for houses for her constituents is just what she does… Then she should produce all the other documents in support of all the other people she has helped.
    This country will stay in the cesspit with people supporting this kind of nonsense.
    And the PM might want to change his mind on keeping her… He done already use a state funded trip for party business. He quickly getting into shady ethics territory.

  40. There was already guidelines

    But lie it went out the door for political support

    Ministers had said hdc shouldn’t be hooking up bachelors with pads to get dates

  41. As I’ve been saying MPs shouldn’t be ministers because constituents ask mps for help and MPs have to hold ministers to account

  42. Thanks Lasana.
    Now allow me to demonstrate the difference between cultures where standards are vastly different. If you recall some years back a New York City politician was caught sexting women who weren’t his wife …. nothing illegal there, but he was obliged to step down from office because it was understood that his behavior was unethical.

    Now in Trinidad on the other hand we have an MP who used her position to expedite the application and approval of an HDC home for someone with whom she is said to have shared a close personal relationship ….. clear conflict of interest yet we can’t come to a consensus that her behavior was unethical.

    Ethics isn’t an opinion ….. ethics is a moral principle!

  43. Lol. You have a point. In the UK, they prioritise families and definitely women with children. Maybe they can create a formula for the stuff.

  44. I also think single applicants shouldn’t get houses

    I get cuss for that the other night

  45. If you asked me, the Housing Ministry should create a group of investigators to go through its allocated houses, identify violations and turn people out and/or take legal action where necessary!

  46. Okay Vernal, so I was informed that it is definitely against the rules to rent the property!
    So Marlene might not have broken any rule by her request for her boo. Although there is an obvious conflict of interes.
    But did she know what he did with that apartment? I doubt anyone in their right mind would accept that she didn’t.
    Did she report it?
    Even if Marlene escapes with her request for her sugarplum, she can’t get off with the man then using the place in a manner that violates HDC rules.
    I think that is shocking behaviour for a Housing Minister. And, with an already corrupt system, I can have no confidence in such a person being in charge.
    In my opinion, Marlene should go.

  47. You know, had a similar case been uncovered in North American or European politics their media would have already found and presented all of the relevant facts and we would not be here debating over what is fact and what is rumor.

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