Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds are wag­ing war as they both filed com­plaints against each oth­er to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. This fol­lows a let­ter is­sued by the com­mis­sion to Hinds which said that it was in­ves­ti­gat­ing the award of a $40 mil­lion con­tract to the firm, Gopaul and Com­pa­ny. Hinds pre­sent­ed the com­mis­sion's let­ter, dat­ed yes­ter­day, to the me­dia dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion yes­ter­day.

Hinds wrote to the com­mis­sion on May 19, 2011, ask­ing that a probe be con­duct­ed on an al­leged breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who stayed at the pri­vate res­i­dence of busi­ness­man Ralph Gopaul in Tu­na­puna for months af­ter the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. Copies of the let­ter from the Reg­is­trar of the Com­mis­sion, Mar­tin Far­rell, dat­ed Ju­ly 25, were dis­trib­uted to the me­dia fol­low­ing last Thurs­day's post- Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair. The let­ter said: "The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has di­rect­ed me to in­form you that a let­ter of com­plaint, al­leg­ing a breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Chap­ter 22:01, per­tain­ing to your stay at the Gopaul's res­i­dence at Pasea, Tu­na­puna, has been re­ceived.

"The com­mis­sion has con­sid­ered the mat­ter and re­ject­ed the com­plaint." Hinds' let­ter con­firmed the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's re­jec­tion of any al­leged breach by the PM but in­di­cat­ed that his oth­er com­plaint was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. The lat­est let­ter, al­so signed by Far­rell, read in part: "How­ev­er, the oth­er as­pect of your com­plaint has been con­sid­ered and is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. "You will be in­formed of the de­ci­sion of the com­mis­sion in due course." He claimed the Prime Min­is­ter did not give all the facts when she "waved" her let­ter to the me­dia last week. And in an al­most im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion de­mand­ing that a prompt re­sponse be giv­en on whether she was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed on any ad­di­tion­al com­plaint.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in her let­ter she was ad­vised that Hinds had "pub­licly stat­ed to­day (yes­ter­day), that I mis­led the pub­lic by dis­clos­ing the fact that your com­mis­sion had cleared me of any wrong­do­ing in the re­cent com­plaint con­cern­ing my stay at the pri­vate res­i­dence of the Gopaul fam­i­ly. "The on­ly com­plaint of which I was no­ti­fied by your com­mis­sion on this is­sue was dis­missed." Copies of the Ju­ly 25 let­ter were dis­trib­uted to the me­dia at last week's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence in St Clair. Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "I have not been in­formed of any oth­er com­plaint against me that may be pend­ing be­fore your com­mis­sion and hence I am ex­treme­ly con­cerned about the defam­a­to­ry in­sin­u­a­tion by Sen­a­tor Hinds that I mis­led the pop­u­la­tion on such a se­ri­ous mat­ter." She then said she want­ed to know "if there are any pend­ing com­plaints against me in re­la­tion to this or any oth­er mat­ter. "I would be most grate­ful for your prompt re­sponse and clar­i­fi­ca­tion as I con­sid­er the al­le­ga­tion to be se­ri­ous and ill-found­ed.

"I would be grate­ful if you could bring the con­tents of this let­ter to the im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion of the rel­e­vant com­mis­sion­er who is in charge of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion." Hinds said he was ex­pect­ed to file a fresh mat­ter to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day. It re­lat­ed to con­fir­ma­tion that Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is to re­ceive a pen­sion from FI­FA, where he served pre­vi­ous­ly as vice pres­i­dent.

Hinds said the com­mis­sion was be­ing asked to in­ves­ti­gate whether any wrong­do­ing was done by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Warn­er who both in­di­cat­ed that Warn­er was not in re­ceipt of a salary from FI­FA. He dis­played the let­ter to the me­dia dur­ing the news con­fer­ence.

Hinds said for any­one to re­ceive a pen­sion it must be based on an in­come, salary or earn­ings re­ceived by the in­di­vid­ual over a pe­ri­od. "So we are now to ask the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion-and my let­ter will be dis­patched lat­er to­day-to find out whether the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al know­ing­ly told us an un­truth, whether Mr Jack Warn­er know­ing­ly im­plied un­truths and whether he had failed to de­clare since 2007, when he be­came an MP, any earn­ings he may have had from FI­FA up­on which a pen­sion is now to be cal­cu­lat­ed or based," Hinds said. He said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment had put T&T in a tail­spin.

"Is a J'Ou­vert band we have for a Gov­ern­ment," Hinds said.