Shal­iza Has­sanali

The Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) has launched a foren­sic au­dit in­to the pur­chase of a $1 mil­lion stain­less steel au­to­mat­ed pub­lic toi­let, mak­ing it the most cost­ly pub­lic con­ve­nience in Trinidad.The two-unit toi­let, which was pur­chased in Aus­tralia and in­stalled be­tween the East­ern Main Road and Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, Curepe Junc­tion, un­der the then Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-led cor­po­ra­tion pri­or to the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in 2009, is now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion with re­gard to its pro­cure­ment process.The mat­ter was raised by mem­bers of the sit­ting ten-month-old Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP)-con­trolled coun­cil and its chair­man, Khadi­jah Ameen, at a statu­to­ry meet­ing.Yes­ter­day, PNM coun­cil­lor for Au­zonville/ Tu­na­puna Es­mond Forde ad­mit­ted that the cur­rent coun­cil had, in fact, re­quest­ed a foren­sic probe."Since then, we have not re­ceived a re­port."

Mejias: Bring it on

But for­mer chair­man of the cor­po­ra­tion Pa­tri­cia Mejias yes­ter­day called on Ameen "to bring on the foren­sic au­dit. I have done noth­ing wrong. I have noth­ing to hide. The foren­sic au­dit will show that Pat Mejias did not ap­prove that. Every­thing was done legal­ly and prop­er­ly."The ap­proval for the toi­lets, Mejias said, was giv­en by for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment In­dra Fur­long-Kel­ly.Mejias did not de­ny the toi­lets ex­ceed­ed $1 mil­lion.She said mon­ey from the cor­po­ra­tion that was sched­uled to go back to the min­istry's con­sol­i­dat­ed fund was used to pur­chase the toi­let.Mejias said she had not in­ter­fered with the ad­min­is­tra­tive busi­ness of the cor­po­ra­tion dur­ing her tenure, in­sist­ing that every­thing was done above board.

She said the down­pay­ment for the toi­let was $500,000.De­scrib­ing the Ex­eloo toi­lets as state-of-the-art, Mejias in­sist­ed oth­er cor­po­ra­tions had a keen in­ter­est in buy­ing the pub­lic con­ve­nience be­cause it cre­at­ed a healthy en­vi­ron­ment.Such high-tech toi­lets, Mejias said, are favoured by city coun­cils as their lim­it­ed us­age time stops mis­use by drug ad­dicts and pros­ti­tutes, who tend to fre­quent pub­lic bath­rooms to con­duct il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.Af­ter ten min­utes in­side the toi­let, Mejias said a warn­ing would sound and the door would open.This fea­ture stopped would-be loi­ter­ers in their tracks.

Mejias said the toi­lets met the needs of the dis­abled and vi­su­al­ly-im­paired and dis­cour­aged loi­ter­ing or van­dal­ism.She added it al­so curbed pub­lic uri­na­tion.Mejias said each unit in­cor­po­rat­ed a wash-down cy­cle us­ing dis­in­fec­tant, wa­ter sprays and dry­ing fans af­ter a pre­set num­ber of us­es.She said in­te­ri­or walls of the toi­let were lined with baked porce­lain on steel pan­els pro­vid­ing a re­silient, long-last­ing sur­face that was re­sis­tant to all forms of van­dal­ism and graf­fi­ti.Mejias ad­mit­ted some for­mer PNM coun­cil­lors had queried the amount of mon­ey spent, which Fur­long-Kel­ly had to ex­plain.

A shame

"You can't ex­pect to get it (toi­lets) for two cents. It's a shame that Khadi­jah did not put up that toi­let. This isn't a waste of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey."Mejias said Ameen was run­ning the cur­rent cor­po­ra­tion "to noth­ing" and was wast­ing her time by re­quest­ing an au­dit in­stead of do­ing the cor­po­ra­tion's busi­ness."She is mak­ing this in­to a bac­cha­nal in­stead of open­ing it for the pub­lic to use."Mejias said the $5 user charge would have cov­ered the over­all cost of the toi­lets in two years' time.Mejias said the toi­lets nev­er worked be­cause a for­eign in­stal­la­tion crew was sup­posed to train a team of work­ers from the cor­po­ra­tion for a year to op­er­ate the me­chan­ics of the toi­lets, which nev­er hap­pened.

Ameen: Caught be­tween a rock and a hard place.On Thurs­day, Ameen ad­mit­ted the toi­lets which cost "in ex­cess of $1 mil­lion" were nev­er used.Asked if it was mon­ey well spent, Ameen re­marked: "Of course not."She ac­knowl­edged the cor­po­ra­tion had re­quest­ed a foren­sic au­dit in­to the pur­chase of the toi­lets sev­er­al weeks ago "But in the mean­time the cor­po­ra­tion will not be spend­ing tax­pay­ers' mon­ey on these types of ven­tures."The chair­man ar­gued that the cost was sim­ply too ex­or­bi­tant to be jus­ti­fied, in­sist­ing that the mon­ey ex­pend­ed could have con­struct­ed a reg­u­lar pub­lic wash­room which would have brought greater re­turns and ben­e­fits to burgess­es.In ad­di­tion to pur­chas­ing the toi­lets, Ameen said, "Ap­par­ent­ly a con­tract was is­sued for the main­te­nance of the toi­lets and a $30,000 cheque for the first job was stopped be­cause it was way too much."

Ameen al­so ob­ject­ed to the bustling area in which the toi­lets were placed, stat­ing that it in­vad­ed the users' pri­va­cy.Ad­mit­ting the cor­po­ra­tion was now sad­dled with the toi­lets that have brought no tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to the cor­po­ra­tion, Ameen said she was now caught be­tween a rock and a hard place, since keep­ing it would be very ex­pen­sive to main­tain."We don't want to make a de­ci­sion that is rash. We have to care­ful­ly think things through."Ameen said she was ad­vised not to make a de­ci­sion on the toi­let just yet. "Un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed. We just want to be on the safe side," she said.

An eye­sore

One ven­dor, who sold fruits near to the toi­lets ad­mit­ted the pub­lic con­ve­nience had served no pur­pose."It's an eye­sore, if you ask me. It would have been bet­ter if the cor­po­ra­tion had worked with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to put a mo­bile po­lice unit at the junc­tion with all the crime tak­ing place in Curepe."The ven­dor stat­ed it was cheap­er for a man to uri­nate on the road­side rather than pay a user fee of $5."Un­less uri­nat­ing in pub­lic places is out­lawed these toi­lets will not make sense."The ven­dor, who want­ed to re­main anony­mous, said the toi­lets were in­stalled days be­fore US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma ar­rived in Trinidad for the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, ar­gu­ing that it was all a po­lit­i­cal gim­mick to spruce up Curepe.

Near­by, stood a green portable plas­tic uri­nal, which has been func­tion­ing as a back-up toi­let.The portable toi­let was one of 20 pur­chased un­der the last regime and placed at parks and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties that fall with­in the TPRC bound­aries. Ameen said this was not well-re­ceived by the pub­lic.The uri­nals, Ameen said, were not of­ten cleaned by cesspool trucks caus­ing an of­fen­sive odour.The portable toi­lets, Ameen said, gave off a stench when urine was left in them for pro­longed pe­ri­ods.Some burgess­es, Ameen said have re­quest­ed that the toi­lets be re­moved from their com­mu­ni­ties.

more in­fo

Ful­ly au­to­mat­ed Ex­eloo Or­bit units in­clude an elec­tri­cal­ly op­er­at­ed slid­ing door and an in-wall stain­less steel sen­sor op­er­at­ed basin unit.

The stan­dard unit in­cludes a man­u­al­ly op­er­at­ed slid­ing door with con­cealed door clos­er, mag­net­ic lock, ce­ram­ic tile in­te­ri­or lin­ings, a qual­i­ty stain­less steel toi­let pan, se­cu­ri­ty basin with timed flow tap, a met­al cased hot air hand dry­er, a stain­less steel mir­ror and a jum­bo roll toi­let pa­per dis­penser.