A former Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) property officer accused of a $1.3 million fraud once complained of being victimised because he is black.

Terrence Smith, who was brought before the BHC board of directors to explain himself after allegations in the press, said: ?I have nothing to hide. If I was a white man I wouldn?t be attacked like this here, I know that.?

Smith is accused of directing $1.3 million of BHC funds to carpenter Steven Barbosa by rubber-stamping overpayments for his work between September 2000 and February 2002.

Mr. Barbosa is said to have passed $924,668 in profits from this scam back to Smith in the form of cash and luxury goods for his mansion on Tee Street, Devonshire.

Invited by the BHC board in April 2002 to address a number of allegations against him, Smith admitted that:

He failed to put jobs on BHC properties out to tender before handing them to contractors. He said he did so on the instructions of General Manager Raymonde Dill.

4 Mr. Dill allowed him to award contracts of up to $200,000 in breach of BHC policies on management-level approval for large jobs.

Painter Paul Young was handed a $130,000-plus job at Top Square, St. George, without other bids being sought. A quantity surveyor later said the right price should have been $105,000.

He had the BHC telephone number on his own personal business card, and took business calls while at work for the Corporation.

The jury heard yesterday how, during his interview with the board, Smith told them that he once studied to be a minister of religion.

He also described himself as one of the first black students to attend Saltus Grammar School after winning a scholarship.

Asking for an opportunity to explain what the allegations against him were ?really all about?, Smith said: ?From the moment that I bought that house on Tee Street I?ve been going through hell.

?I?ve been going through hell with the neighbours in the area and I know for a fact that (white politician) Mr. Michael Dunkley, when he found out that a black boy was going in that neighbourhood, he wanted to buy that house.?

He claimed people had thrown eggs at his house and workmen at BHC told people he must be taking kickbacks because his house was so nice.

?Opportunities for black people are no better now than it was back then. All they have told me and all that the paper has proven to me is that a black man still only belongs in Middletown or St. Monica?s Road,? he said.

When quizzed by the board about painter Paul Young ? dubbed ?The Man with the Golden Paintbrush? ? one member put it to Smith that in a period of five months he had awarded all the BHC jobs to Mr. Young.

He replied that he had never wanted to give work to Mr. Young, an American married to a Bermudian, as he felt that a Bermudian should have done it, but Mr. Dill approved of his practice of employing young men from the streets.

Former chairman of the BHC board Valerie Dill told the jury earlier limit placed on Mr. Dill in respect of approving contracts to outside workers was $50,000.

After this, she said, the directors must give their approval. She also said that the bidding process for contracts in excess of this sum required three bids to be reviewed by the board.

Further details also emerged of the debts that Smith has in respect of expensive goods and services for his luxury home.

Painter Anthony Burt said he was owed $3,000, while Dawn Evans of Hamilton store Furniture Walk said that more than $27,000 remained unpaid and Mohammed Farooqui of Sousa?s Landscaping described an outstanding bill of $23,500.

Smith denies 46 charges of obtaining property by false pretences and the case continues.