Disclosure of the evidence used to lay a fraud charge against former Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson and the former General Manager of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC) Rawlston Adams is expected to continue at the start of next month.
The two men were present at a Georgetown court yesterday when Senior Magistrate Leron Daly told them that their case would be called again on March 1st, when the summary disclosure will be presented to the court. This newspaper was informed that the pair received witness statements at yesterday’s arraignment.
The two currently face a joint charge, which states that between November 18th, 2016, and February 1st, 2018, at Georgetown, they conspired with each other and with other persons unknown to defraud the DHBC of $162,635,015, funds of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation Asphalt Plant Account, for a project about a feasibility study and design for a new bridge which was not a function of the said DHBC and for which the said money could not be used.
They have been released on $200,000 bail each.
The charge stemmed from an ongoing probe by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) over Patterson’s role in sole-sourcing a company which had conducted a feasibility study and design for a new Demerara Harbour Bridge.
The Public Procurement Commission (PPC) had completed an investigation into the Auditor General’s Report for the fiscal year 2016 and it revealed that the Ministry had breached the Procurement Act in awarding a contract in December 2016 to LievenseCSO for the job. According to the investigation, the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MoPI) did not heed the advice offered by the National Procure-ment and Tender Adminis-tration Board to retender the project. Instead, the company was engaged by the MoPI to go ahead with the work. Patterson’s then ministry had defended the single-sourcing and said that Cabinet had been fully involved in the decision to hire LievenseCSO and there were constraints surrounding the need to complete the new bridge.
