Housing Minister’s husband has contract to build houses for her Ministry   

The husband of Valerie Patterson-Yearwood, the Minister within the Ministry of Communities responsible for the housing sector, has a current contract to build houses for the Ministry under a special housing programme.

The housing programme is being carried out by the Central Planning Authority (CH&PA), which falls under the Ministry of Communities and for which Patterson-Yearwood has direct oversight.

But she suggested that she does not intervene in the work of the Board or influence its decisions. The CH&PA is located at the Minister’s Brickdam, Georgetown office.

She denied knowing whether her husband was granted contracts after the two got married but said she knew of the fact that he has a current contract.

“It’s one contract; I think it’s for two buildings.

“I am not too au fait with the details, because I don’t deal with contracts,” she told the News Room in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The Minister married the contractor and Pastor Godfrey Yearwood on August 16, 2017, at her residence in Bel Air Gardens, Georgetown.

To the question of whether her husband was granted contracts after their marriage, she replied: “I am not aware; I do not deal with contracts at CH&PA.”

The Minister said her husband was given contracts in 2016 and early 2017, just before they were married.

The Minister declared that the CH&PA board “is the only authorising” agency to grant contracts.”

She said that her husband was not pre-qualified with housing for contracts in 2018, 2019 nor “any future engagement.”