The fall­out over $3.4 bil­lion in state hous­ing con­tracts is deep­en­ing, with new de­tails show­ing that the in­ter­ven­tion by the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor in the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) was trig­gered by a qui­eter but piv­otal move from the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC), even as Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee has re­mained silent.

On April 9, the JCC wrote to the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor (OPR) af­ter ver­i­fy­ing in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by a pri­vate cit­i­zen—days be­fore the is­sue es­ca­lat­ed in­to a na­tion­al con­tro­ver­sy. The coun­cil’s ac­tion ul­ti­mate­ly set the stage for the reg­u­la­to­ry in­ter­ven­tion now un­der scruti­ny.

JCC pres­i­dent Fazir Khan said the coun­cil’s con­cerns cen­tre on whether pro­cure­ment rules were fol­lowed, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion stage.