For­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme’s (CEPEP) chair­man Joel Ed­wards says he nev­er had any con­ver­sa­tion with or got in­struc­tion from then line min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi on the pro­gramme’s (CEPEP’s) $1.4 bil­lion in con­tract ex­ten­sions.

The rev­e­la­tion came yes­ter­day, as Ed­wards’ lawyer, St Clair O’Neil, wrote to Free­dom Cham­bers’ Jared Ja­groo, in re­sponse to me­dia re­ports which quot­ed Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, as call­ing on Ed­wards to clear the air on Al-Rawi’s in­volve­ment in the mat­ter.

In the strong­ly word­ed let­ter to Ja­groo, O’Neil dis­closed, “Rel­a­tive to your char­ac­ter­i­sa­tions, sup­po­si­tions and en­quiries as to Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi SC’s role and in­volve­ment as the then line min­is­ter for CEPEP, my client in­structs that he nev­er had any con­ver­sa­tion with or in­struc­tion from then Min­is­ter Al-Rawi about a re­cent Cab­i­net de­ci­sion as po­ten­tial­ly con­tem­plat­ed or open to in­ter­pre­ta­tion by the Board Note in ques­tion.