Assamba
FLORIDA-BASED Jamaican businessman Charles Wood, brother of Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba, said suggestions that he used his family ties to secure a lucrative government hotel contract are both misleading and malicious.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Audley Shaw, brought the matter up in Parliament two weeks ago, Mr. Wood said he has been involved with the supplying of fixtures and fittings to Jamaican hotels since 1985 and has never received a favour to secure any of his contracts.
"I have been living in Florida since 1985 and have been supplying fixtures and spare parts to Jamaican hoteliers and manufacturers," Mr. Wood said yesterday. "This was long before Aloun ever dreamed of entering politics. I submitted a bid for the White-house contract and was successful ...this had nothing to do with being the brother of the tourism minister as some people have been saying."
CLOSE-KNIT FAMILY
Mr. Wood added that while he could weather the 'malicious and vicious attacks', he was particularly concerned about his sister and attempts at sullying her reputation.
"We are a very close-knit family and one can understand that naturally we would be upset over attempts at maligning our character," he added. "To use the floor of the Jamaican Parliament to hurl self-serving allegations ...to use the press to satisfy an agenda at someone else's expense is not my idea of fair play. Are we saying that because Aloun is now a government minister I should quit my business of 20 years?"
CREATED A STIR
Mr. Shaw created a stir in the House two weeks ago with the suggestion that a senior government minister's brother might have unfairly received a contract to provide equipment to a hotel being built in Whitehouse, Westmoreland.
He subsequently blasted the government for what he said was its failure to bring adequate information to the House as it sought parliamentary approval for a government guarantee for a US$25 million ($1.5 billion) loan that would in part fund the hotel construction.
"I want the Honourable Minister of Finance (Dr. Omar Davies), if he cannot answer me today, he must bring a report to Parliament as to which company it is in Florida which is supplying all these goods to that hotel which is being funded by we the people of Jamaica," Mr. Shaw said.
"It does not look good, it cannot be good, for the major sub-contractor who supplies all the equipment and fixtures for this new hotel, running into millions and millions of U.S. dollars, for that sub-contractor to be a brother of a senior minister of government," Mr. Shaw said.
It has been subsequently disclosed that Mr. Wood and his company, Charsal Marketing Inc. out of Miami, Florida, was the company Mr. Shaw had been hinting at. Efforts to reach him last night for a comment were unsuccessful.
Alston Stewart, project manager for the Whitehouse hotel project, in an interview with The Gleaner last night said he was happy Mr. Wood has decided to break his silence on the matter, saying Charsal Marketing was selected on the basis of its proposed fees and its proven experience.
"This has all been blown out of proportion," he said. "I would also like to set the record straight in that there is no US$15 million contract here for anybody. Charsal stands to make roughly US$300,000... that's about it. Nobody received any favours nor was there anything underhand in the bidding process."
