Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der yes­ter­day called on the Op­po­si­tion to ex­plain what he de­scribed as spe­cial treat­ment al­leged­ly giv­en to a con­trac­tor in the award of a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) project.

Dur­ing an on­go­ing tour of stalled HDC de­vel­op­ments, Alexan­der in­vit­ed mem­bers of the me­dia to the Cit­rus Close De­vel­op­ment along the East­ern Main Road in Port-of-Spain, where he raised con­cerns about the project’s pro­cure­ment process and over­all vi­a­bil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Alexan­der, the con­trac­tor that ul­ti­mate­ly se­cured the con­tract was award­ed the project de­spite an­oth­er com­pa­ny hav­ing sub­mit­ted the low­est bid. He al­so claimed that the same con­trac­tor had been en­gaged to con­struct Bal­isi­er House.