By Glenroy Sinclair and Claude Mills, Staff Reporters TOP RANKING police officials will decide today when to level charges against several persons named by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in his ruling on the multibillion-dollar Operation PRIDE housing fraud case, having received the file under confidential cover yesterday.
Danhai Williams, whose name has surfaced in connection with the file, told The Gleaner yesterday that there was no truth to reports that he was among the persons to be charged.
The other persons reportedly under investigation were Lloyd McLean, Warren Sibbles, Gerald Tobias, Donovan Hill and a man identified as 'Mr. Henry'. These persons were employed to the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC) and/or its contractors.
CRIME CHIEF TIGHT-LIPPED
Yesterday, crime chief, DCP Lucius Thomas, said he was in possession of the file, but would make no comment on when he and his team would act on DPP Kent Pantry's directives.
The ruling came after more than a year of intensive investigations by senior detectives attached to the Fraud Squad into four Operation PRIDE schemes.
ALLEGED FRAUD
The National Housing Development Corporation is alleged to have paid out $341 million for work not done under the PRIDE programme on three of the schemes Riverton Meadows, Melbrook, and St. Benedicts. Williams' firm, Danwills Construction, was among the firms named when the scandal broke.
Mr. Pantry made the ruling last Friday, but kept the file over the weekend and sent it off late yesterday evening under confidential cover to the Deputy Commissioner in charge of crime, Lucius Thomas.
"Yes, I received the file 5:30 p.m. this afternoon (Monday). It is right on my desk, but I will not be opening it until tomorrow (today) when myself, the Commissioner and other senior officers will review it," DCP Thomas told The Gleaner yesterday.
Operation PRIDE is a government housing project in which prospective beneficiaries form themselves into provident societies and contribute to developing their housing schemes with cash and other equity.
Controversy dogged the schemes in 2002 after allegations arose that the low-income housing project was being loosely managed, opening up a floodgate of corruption.
Dr. Karl Blythe, then Minister of Water and Housing, resigned in April 2002 following a damning report from the Erwin Angus-led Commission appointed by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson to probe the operations.
Dr. Blythe was later exonerated after a probe conducted by Carl Rattray, former Solicitor-General, who was also appointed by the Prime Minister, found that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
The Angus Commissioners had however recommended that a forensic audit be carried out on certain projects and that police investigations be pursued into allegations of fraud, with respect to the Morant Farms and St. Benedict's projects.
