Gail Alexan­der

Ques­tions have arisen re­gard­ing the re­port­ed award of a $40 mil­lion NP con­tract to an East­ern garbage truck­ing com­pa­ny and the own­er of a Tu­na­puna prop­er­ty where Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stayed af­ter the May 24, 2010, gen­er­al elec­tion.PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds said yes­ter­day: "I'm call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to de­clare her in­ter­est, if she has any, in the award of this con­tract and say whether she is a friend of the con­trac­tor who is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive the award.

"She must say if she has some in­ter­est in en­sur­ing if some­one is a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of a state con­tract like this, in cir­cum­stances where it can­not eas­i­ly be jus­ti­fied."Hinds' call fol­lows ques­tions he raised in Par­lia­ment on the en­tire is­sue over the last two months, in­clud­ing up to last Tues­day.More than a month ago, Hinds asked whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar stayed at state ex­pense at the Pasea, Tu­na­puna, res­i­dence or an­oth­er res­i­dence apart from the of­fi­cial St Ann's res­i­dence. He again raised the is­sue in the Sen­ate last Tues­day, when he al­lud­ed to the con­tract award.In the Sen­ate, Hinds said a con­tract was be­ing award­ed to a "par­tic­u­lar friend of the Gov­ern­ment (sic) when a con­trac­tor who had been do­ing it for ten years re­mained the low­est bid­der."

HInds claimed "in­struc­tions from high up in the Cab­i­net, a di­rect in­volve­ment" were that the ex­ist­ing con­trac­tor be re­moved.Hinds said the ex­ist­ing con­trac­tor was asked to "hold on"un­til the new awardee brought trucks in­to T&T to han­dle the con­tract.Yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vis­er Gary Grif­fith con­firmed the Prime Min­is­ter stayed at a Mo­hammed Street, (Pasea) Tu­na­puna, res­i­dence, af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion, since the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fi­cial res­i­dence at La Fan­tasie was not yet ready or se­cure.The Op­po­si­tion has al­leged that the own­er of that prop­er­ty owns the garbage col­lec­tion com­pa­ny (al­so lo­cat­ed in Pasea, Tu­na­puna) which is at is­sue in the NP $40 mil­lion con­tract award.

Last week, CDS Ltd, one of the bid­ders for the con­tract-and which has been hand­ing the con­tract for years-sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan ask­ing her to "in­ves­ti­gate and have NP show and jus­ti­fy" why they were "over­looked" for the pro­vi­sion of a ser­vice which "they have been per­form­ing with dis­tinc­tion (for NP) over the years."CDS al­leged that al­though it had ten­dered "the low­est bid" and had "the best track record and ex­pe­ri­ence," the com­pa­ny was not de­ter­mined as the "pre­ferred bid­der" and con­tend­ed that NP's de­ci­sion to do so was "clear­ly not" based on mer­it.Yes­ter­day Hinds claimed: "I have in­for­ma­tion the con­tract has been been award­ed to the (name called) East Trinidad con­trac­tor and it is like­ly a let­ter of award has gone out.

"I'm call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter and the En­er­gy Min­is­ter to clear the air on this...The min­is­ter is re­spon­si­ble and she can­not say she is not," he said."I al­so no­tice the Prime Min­is­ter say­ing she has no idea who the new con­trac­tor is, while we are aware of her oc­cu­pan­cy of that Tu­na­puna house."We'd like her to clear the air on the ques­tions around this and say if the con­tract has been award­ed to the Gopaul com­pa­ny and what, if any in­ter­est, she may have in this."Hinds said he had filed fur­ther ques­tions in Par­lia­ment on the is­sue and to source more in­for­ma­tion on it un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act.

Last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the NP con­tract award had not been brought to her at­ten­tion nor that of the Cab­i­net. She said there was need to prop­er­ly pro­cure the award of these state con­tracts to pre­vent the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing a scan­dal.Yes­ter­day, speak­ing with re­porters at Cou­va, when asked about the con­tract is­sue, Per­sad Bisses­sar said the line min­is­ter was get­ting a re­port."I'm sure they'll bring that back to us hope­ful­ly, this week," she added.Asked if she was ac­quaint­ed with any of the par­ties in the con­tract, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:"I'll be hon­est, if I say I am or I'm not-I don't know, be­cause I don't know who got the con­tract or what hap­pened."So when the re­port comes in, we'll know and then I'll be able to say if I know them or I don't-I need to see the re­port so I'll know who it is," she said.