MACON, Ga. (AP) - A central Georgia industrial authority says three contractors owe nearly $2 million for work never done, but the companies say board members approved the work and they’re not giving the money back.
The Telegraph reports the work was overseen by Cliffard Whitby, the former chairman of the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority. But Whitby is now under indictment in a public corruption probe. After he resigned, board members ordered an audit that found Whitby was related to owners of two contractors in question. After further investigation, the board concluded that invoices didn’t match buildings or work performed at Allied Industrial Park.
Atlanta Attorney William “Chip” Collins Jr. denies any wrongdoing by the three contractors and said the authority isn’t entitled to be repaid.
“My clients vehemently deny any wrongdoing or that the authority is entitled to reimbursement of any funds paid to my clients,” he wrote in a nine-page letter dated Monday to Kevin Brown, attorney for authority.
The authority demanded repayment April 2 from Tyrone K. Lewis at Armstead Management in Atlanta and from Roosevelt Whitehead Sr., doing business as W.M. Construction in Macon. The letters said that work was never performed of completed for “certain construction and demolition work purportedly completed at various property owned by the authority,” between 2015 and 2017 despite authority payments of more than $1.1 million.
The authority sent a similar letter to Dante Prater at New Age Concept and Consulting in Macon and Whitehead, demanding that the company repay about $772,000 for work not performed or completed.
Collins said authority board members, staff and its lawyer all were “very involved” in the work and that it’s “grossly unfair and disingenuous” for them to now question whether it was actually done.
Current Chairman Robby Fountain said earlier this month that “we trusted Cliff,” and there wasn’t anything at the time to raise a red flag when Whitby approved the invoices.
However the audit revealed that Whitby’s brother-in-law, Lewis, operates Armstead Management, and his son-in-law, Prater, operates New Age Concept.
“Instead of taking the opportunity in their letter to provide factual justifications for the invoices they themselves generated, the contractors merely attempt to lay blame on the authority for failing to discover the billing inaccuracies sooner,” the authority said in a Wednesday statement.
Collins wrote that it’s “disturbing” that the authority is trying to recoup money after it hired minority-owned businesses in an effort to “remedy the authority’s woeful history of failing to hire minority contractors.”
Fountain, lawyer Kevin Brown and acting director Stephen Adams acknowledge that the property was difficult to clean up and that buildings either weren’t labeled or weren’t numbered in sequence and therefore difficult to identify.
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Information from: The Telegraph, http://www.macontelegraph.com
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