Godfrey Yearwood, the husband of Minister Valerie Adams-Yearwood, has been granted at least one contract to construct houses for the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).
Chief Executive Officer of CH&PA Lelon Saul yesterday confirmed to Stabroek News that Yearwood was contracted to build units as part of the agency’s “Housing Solutions and Beyond project” which was executed in 2017.
“I believe Mr Yearwood was contracted to build some units, about five houses specifically 1 duplex, two elevated houses and two flat houses sometime in 2017,” he said in response to questions from Stabroek News.
The Minister’s husband receiving a contract from an agency she had oversight of would be seen as a serious conflict of interest. Adams-Yearwood has not been available to comment on this matter and her ministry has said nothing about it since the issue has been raised.
The project was launched in June 2017, two months before the Minister who has responsibility for housing in the Ministry of Communities married the contractor on August 16, 2017.
It is not clear if the contract with Yearwood was signed before or after his marriage to the minister. Effort to reach both parties failed as did efforts to reach Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan.
Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo revealed the existence of the contract on Wednesday during his weekly press conference when he noted that a sub-contractor complained of not receiving payments more than a year after having completed work.
According to Jagdeo, the subcontractor visited his office showing him correspondence he had written to various government officials including President David Granger.
“Yearwood sub-contracted these guys from the villages to do the work and then refused to pay them for the work done. So [the subcontractor] came here and he showed me… Four times he addressed the matter [to the President] and four acknowledgment of his complaints and until now, he can’t get [any recourse]. Over a year of trying …he can’t pay his workers; they’re harassing him, because the Minister’s husband refusing to pay for contracts he got from the Ministry his wife runs,” Jagdeo said.
While Saul declined to comment on whether Yearwood’s employment represented a conflict of interests since his wife is the political head of the agency he did indicate that “someone would’ve complained” that Yearwood had not paid subcontractors sums they were owed.
He noted that the CH&PA was however not in a position to intervene between Yearwood and his employees as their obligations were only to pay Yearwood for the work he did.
“I think someone would’ve complained that he would’ve honoured his obligations but we have always honoured our obligations to our service providers,” Saul said.
He further explained that while procurement at the agency is done at both the level of the CH&PA board and the National Tender & Procurement Administration he “rather suspects” Yearwood’s contract was done at the level of the CH&PA board.
Usually the CH&PA board grants contracts up to and including $20 million while NTPA grants contracts which are larger. It is not clear how large the contract is that was granted to Yearwood.
