🏛️ Ex-NHDT chair Geoffry Ebanks found not guilty in soil scandal

Former National Housing and Development Trust (NHDT) chair, Geoffry William Ebanks, has been acquitted of two corruption charges. The charges were related to material cleared from the NHDT site in North Side, which Ebanks directed to his own land for use as fill. After more than eight hours of deliberation over two days, a jury consisting of six women and one man found Ebanks not guilty of both counts – breach of trust and conflict of interest.

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The two-week trial revealed that Ebanks had indeed directed the material to his land, but stated that his actions were intended to keep the project on track. Ebanks testified that he had been informed by truck drivers that Beacon Farms, the 65-acre rehabilitation facility in the district where the cleared material was initially intended to go, was full after just two days of deliveries. As a result, he directed what could have been around 100 truckloads of material, including soil, rock, and green waste, to his own and his father’s land. He also paid another truck driver thousands of dollars to spread the fill across his land. Ebanks claimed that he had informed NHDT Director Julio Ramos about his actions but did not formally notify the rest of the board, believing they were already aware of the situation.

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During the trial, it was also revealed that the heavy equipment operator who spread the material was Johnny Ebanks, the father of Planning Minister Jay Ebanks, who is responsible for the NHDT. Johnny Ebanks had worked for the Housing Trust for several days driving one of the trucks removing waste from the site, a fact that raised eyebrows among some board members.

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