In the cut and thrust of politics, it’s rare that you’ll
hear any party politician publicly condemn one of his own party members –
especially if they’re both elected. And that’s what makes a calculated
outburst by Housing Minister Michael Finnegan on today’s KREM W-U-B morning
show very remarkable. Finnegan went off on UDP Area Representative for Orange
Walk East, Marcel Cardona, accusing the first term representative of giving
an excessive number of housing grant supply contracts to his relatives at San
Isidro Construction Center.
But Finnegan’s attack didn’t just come out of the blue;
he responded after a series of calls from Orange Walk East claiming that the
Ministry of Housing was holding back the Venezuelan housing money earmarked
for that constituency. Finnegan alleged that Cardona directed all $386,000 in
supply contracts to San Isidro. San Isidro is run by Ramon Monchie Cervantez
– who is Marcel Cardona’s Uncle, and he was also the PUP candidate
for Mayor in Orange Walk in Municipal elections earlier this year.
Nepotism and political cross dressing? That’s a double no in
any political playbook. But Monchie Cervantez told us Minister Finnegan is the
one who’s double wrong because so far San Isidro has only received 60
– 65 thousand dollars in supply contracts and they’ve only gotten
a small cut of the business because most of the contracts in the UDP controlled
Orange Walk have gone to Landy’s and Sons, the business owned by Orlando
Burns, a UDP insider.
Today Finnegan said that politics and personalities have nothing to 
do with it. He says Cardona’s supply contracts to San Isidro were cut
off because the company is owned by a family relation.
Hon. Michael Finnegan, Minister of Housing
“Alright I don’t know who is Monchie or whatever the case may
be. I know the company that I spoke about was San Isidro Construction. We had
some $216,000 of orders that was directed to this company. They had gotten in
the first instance $168,000 worth of orders and when we were notified that this
is a family member of the Area Representative, orders were at the Ministry totalling
$58,000 which was stopped. So it is a total of about $216,000 worth of orders
and it is more than that also. There is another $170,000 in orders which were
approved but orders were not yet made out to the company. But it was in the
process of being made out to the company.
When I saw this and it came to my attention I said this looks bad, this
is not what the UDP was preaching about, this look bad. How can one man direct
some nearly $400,000 worth of business to a family company? I informed Cabinet
last week Tuesday and Cabinet instructed me to put a stop to it.”
Jose Sanchez, News 5
“Monchie is saying that he only got $60,000 to $65,000.”
Hon. Michael Finnegan,
“I noh care what Monchie tells you. I am saying to you that some three
hundred and odd thousand dollars worth of business was directed to this company,
San Isidro Company. Who is Monchie I don’t know and I don’t care.
There are several construction companies throughout the country; Belize
City, Orange Walk and so, and we ask them to share up the business among the
construction companies throughout the country. That is the policy of the government.
If people come in and bring Habet order and Feinstein order and Tony Leslie
and whatever company, Augusto Quan, or whatever others, then we cannot stop
them but when the politician, when the politician will direct all the business
to one company, I believe something is wrong; especially a family company; a
family company.”
Jose Sanchez,
“If you would find out that other constituencies in Orange Walk were directing
their funds to Landys and Sons, would that be an issue?”
Hon. Michael Finnegan,
“It would be an issue to me because what happened, dah only Landy
sell construction materials and I hope they aren’t doing that.
I haven’t chosen to single out Marcel Cardona. This morning Marcel
Cardona apparently was organizing calls from his division to bring the Ministry
of Housing into disrepute and so I had to call in to get matters cleared up.
He tried to embarrass the Ministry that we di withhold funds from him and the
stop his orders so we had to call and make the public know the truth.”
As we said, Monchie Cervantez insists that San Isidro has only gotten
$65,000 in supply contracts. As for Marcel Cardona, he could not be reached
for comment. We left a message with his receptionist, and are still waiting
for a reply.
As for the supply contracts, here’s how it works. Those applying
for housing grants are asked to get a pro-forma invoice from any supplier for
the materials they will need to repair their homes. If their application is
approved, payment is issued form the ministry of housing to that supplier. Finnegan
alleges that in Cardona’s Orange Walk East there was a deviation from
that standard practice where he alleges Cardona would directly get the supply
allocations form San Isidro. Like we said, Cardona was unavailable.
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