Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

Joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is right to call for the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) to ex­plain why staff of the Of­fice of Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) did not oc­cu­py a rental build­ing at Park and Hen­ry streets, Port-of-Spain, that has cost the state $55 mil­lion. The vet­er­an de­fence at­tor­ney said the Prime Min­is­ter must find out ex­act­ly why the build­ing was not oc­cu­pied.

“The Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions has giv­en an ex­pla­na­tion, but they should re­al­ly find out as to why it wasn’t oc­cu­pied and if there are good rea­sons, well, so be it,” he said.

At a post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day, Row­ley said some­thing had to be dras­ti­cal­ly wrong as the Gov­ern­ment agreed to pro­vide ex­ec­u­tive of­fices for the DPP by en­ter­ing in­to a three-year con­tract, then out­fit­ting and se­cur­ing the build­ing, on­ly to be told by a pub­lic ser­vant (pre­sumed to be the DPP) that the move is not hap­pen­ing.

“This whole ques­tion of who runs this coun­try, who is in charge in this coun­try should be of con­cern to the pop­u­la­tion. Be­cause if that could hap­pen with that of­fice, does this set a prece­dent for oth­er of­fi­cers that you are work­ing for the Gov­ern­ment, you don’t like the build­ing, you don’t feel safe, so I (you) are not go­ing in there? ... $55 mil­lion! ...

“All those months to-ing and fro-ing and to-ing and fro-ing un­til the con­tract end­ed, with­out the build­ing be­ing oc­cu­pied for one day!” Khan said

How­ev­er, while the JLSC can seek an­swers, Khan said it was out of the ques­tion that it could dis­ci­pline DPP Roger Gas­pard over this mat­ter. He be­lieves talk of dis­ci­plin­ing the DPP is an at­tempt to put po­lit­i­cal pres­sure on the Prime Min­is­ter.

He said un­der the doc­trine of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, the Cab­i­net can­not force and bull­doze their way in­to the pub­lic ser­vice. They are pro­tect­ed.

“It’s on­ly if they com­mit a bla­tant in­frac­tion un­der the pub­lic ser­vice reg­u­la­tions. They can­not bring dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against the DPP for not en­ter­ing the build­ing,” he said.

Khan be­lieves Row­ley made a ‘po­lit­i­cal state­ment’ be­cause pres­sure is be­ing ex­ert­ed on him about the rental of the build­ing for the DPP’s of­fice.

“Pres­sure is be­ing put on him be­cause re­mem­ber the per­son (prop­er­ty own­er) they might have rent­ed the build­ing from is al­leged to be a sup­port­er of the PNM par­ty and maybe con­tributed to the par­ty and all of that,” he said.

It was pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed that an of­fi­cial raised con­cerns about se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems at the Port-of-Spain rental build­ing.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour did not re­spond to ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia.