A former Bermuda Housing Corporation General Manager has condemned the dual management role his successor held during part of the time Terrence Smith allegedly defrauded the corporation.

The Supreme Court case has heard how Raymonde Dill filled the vacant Property Manager?s role in addition to being General Manager from May 2000 until November 2001. The Property Manager is tasked with checking the work of Property Officers like Smith, the court has been told by various witnesses. This and the General Manager?s position involve authorising payments made to BHC contractors at different stages in the process.

Smith is accused of defrauding the Corporation of $1.3 million between September 2000 and February 2002. He is said to have done this by giving the the green light for inflated bills submitted by carpenter Steven Barbosa to be paid in the knowledge that they were false. Mr. Barbosa, according to the prosecution, passed $924,668 in profits from this exercise back to Smith in the form of cash and goods for his home.

Edwin Cowen ? in charge of the BHC from 1992 to 1999 ? on Friday continued with the evidence he began on Thursday. Under cross examination from Consultant to the Department of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser he said of Mr. Dill?s double responsibilities: ?I think he has a real conflict. He needs to hire someone to do the Property Manager?s job...are you saying it?s right for me as a Property Manager to authorise something and then (again) as a General Manager??

Quizzed by Consultant to the Department of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser about what lower-ranking officers at the Corporation could have done about this, Mr. Cowen responded: ?The BHC board should have been active enough to realise what was going on and pressured that manager to find someone else.?

When Mr. Ratneser pressed him as to what steps subordinate officers could take, Mr. Cowen said: ?All they could do is to complain about it and I don?t see any reason why they can?t go to the Board of Directors to complain about it.?

Mr. Ratneser put it to him: ?So there would have to be something like a whistleblower??.

?Yes? replied Mr. Cowen.

The former General Manager ? who spent a large part of his career working in real estate ? was also asked about the value of the house in Tee Street, Devonshire, that Smith is alleged to have spent BHC cash renovating. He estimated that it was worth ?close to $1 million? in the year 2000. After what he believed was $700,000 to $900,000 worth of work on the property, he estimated its value at $2.35 million by 2002.

Mr. Cowen was the first witness for the defence, after Smith exercised his right to silence. The second and final witness called by defence lawyer Larry Scott yesterday was Detroy Bean. Mr. Bean told the court he is a general contractor and that he and his wife work in ?pre-marital and marital conflict?.

He described how he once saw a newspaper picture of Terrence Smith pinned up in Steven Barbosa?s carpentry workshop which had had darts thrown at it.

Smith denies 45 counts of fraud, and the closing speeches in the case are set to begin this morning.