Shal­iza Has­sanali

Mem­bers of the T&T Con­trac­tors' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA) are de­mand­ing the mon­ey which Gov­ern­ment has been promis­ing to pay them. On No­vem­ber 11, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in promis­ing a good Christ­mas, said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an was work­ing to en­sure mon­ey owed to con­trac­tors as well as salaries and wages are paid. Mean­while, how­ev­er, some TTCA mem­bers are forced to liq­ui­date as­sets, lay off staff and shut down their op­er­a­tions. Pres­i­dent of the TTCA Mikey Joseph is ac­cus­ing the rul­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment of pay­ing con­trac­tors who have strong links with the coali­tion par­ty, ahead of le­git­i­mate mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion who claim they are be­ing owed $1.5 bil­lion.

How­ev­er, a well placed Gov­ern­ment source is con­tend­ing that some con­trac­tors are yet to be paid be­cause of a num­ber of 'ghost' bills that they have been sub­mit­ting. An up­set Joseph said on Fri­day that if the Gov­ern­ment failed to ho­n­our the debt owed to con­trac­tors be­fore March 31, 2011, the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC), head­ed by Afra Ray­mond, will be tak­ing the mat­ter to the court. In fact, he said TTCA had al­ready held pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions with at­tor­neys. The JCC, in a let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 15 and penned to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, out­lined a list of rec­om­men­da­tions for re­solv­ing the sit­u­a­tion. The JCC is al­so de­mand­ing that the Gov­ern­ment pays in­ter­est on the out­stand­ing monies.

Joseph: They're pay­ing par­ty sup­port­ers

Ray­mond, speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day, said, "This is a se­ri­ous prob­lem. Peo­ple have had to take heavy loss­es." Ray­mond said the last thing they want to do was head to the courts since every­one ends up los­ing. On De­cem­ber 7, Dook­er­an said over the last four months the State had paid an es­ti­mat­ed $2.7 bil­lion to the con­struc­tion in­dus­try. The State's debt to con­trac­tors, Dook­er­an said, was es­ti­mat­ed be­tween $5 bil­lion and $7 bil­lion. Ques­tioned yes­ter­day about the pay­ments to the con­trac­tors at a Christ­mas treat for chil­dren at Bethel New Life In Christ Min­istry in Barataria, Dook­er­an said the con­trac­tors who were paid were not at­tached to the TTCA, but from an­oth­er group. Joseph, ques­tion­ing who were the con­trac­tors paid, claimed none of TTCA's 150 mem­bers had re­ceived any mon­ey. He called on Dook­er­an to name the con­trac­tors whose bills were set­tled and what cri­te­ria were used to is­sue pay­ments. The con­trac­tors who were paid, Joseph claimed, "Have strong ties to the UNC and COP." Joseph, re­fus­ing to call the names of the con­trac­tors who were paid, said "there are at least four." Joseph said cer­tain peo­ple have been mov­ing to­geth­er "to get every­thing for them­selves." Joseph said Dook­er­an was right; "They are not our mem­bers. I know there were some some peo­ple who were lob­by­ing par­tic­u­lar min­is­ters."

Dook­er­an: The debts have no au­thor­i­ty

In ad­di­tion to the TTCA mem­bers, Joseph said there are 2,250 reg­is­tered con­trac­tors with the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs. Joseph said over a pe­ri­od of five years, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 700 con­trac­tors opened busi­ness­es "just be­cause peo­ple fig­ure that some­body, some­where could have giv­en them a con­tract." Dook­er­an said on Fri­day he asked all min­istries to sup­ply him with the debts owed. "Most of those debts have no au­thor­i­ty. That is the prob­lem." Dook­er­an said he could not pay monies that have not been ap­pro­pri­at­ed.

"All these are the tech­ni­cal is­sues," he said. Joseph said as far as he knows his mem­bers are the prin­ci­pals in build­ing in this coun­try and that all mem­bers were award­ed con­tracts above board. Pri­or to this brouha­ha, Joseph said the con­trac­tors who are non TTCA mem­bers came to him to speed up the pay­ment process, even dis­clos­ing which Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter they went to in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate quick pay­ments.

Dirty mails to the PM

Joseph said plans are afoot by some con­trac­tors to dis­cred­it the names of some of their mem­bers.

"They have been send­ing dirty mail to the Prime Min­is­ter, min­is­ters and for­eign com­pa­nies. I am just be­ing pa­tient. When the time comes those peo­ple will deal with the prob­lems they have cre­at­ed. "There are those who think they are po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned and could use per­sua­sion by send­ing let­ters to the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­ers to tar­nish the names of some of their col­leagues." Joseph said in years gone by there was an abun­dance of work in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors that kept every­one busy. "Now there is a lot of con­fu­sion. We are get­ting con­fus­ing sig­nals. We are caught be­tween a rock and a hard place.