Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says the population must know why some $47 million is being spent on forensic legal audits. Rowley made the call during his 75-minute contribution to yesterday's debate on the Finance (Supplementary Appropriation) Bill, 2011. The bill seeks to increase the 2011 budget by $2 billion. Rowley said while attorneys were being paid to do the audit, "we are not hearing about any deliverables." The attorneys, including a British QC, were investigating several projects under the former Patrick Manning government.
"Tens of millions being paid (to attorneys), including two British QCs, (and) no legal terms of reference for these legal forensic teams is available to the people of T&T," Rowley said. "We may very well be feeding people from the Treasury and receiving precious little in return." He said the original $33 million for that project had been increased to $47 million without any information about the terms of reference of the attorneys. Rowley said the population should know what the attorneys were doing in Petrotrin and WASA, two of the companies in which the forensic audit was being done.
Rowley also said the Government had to allocate $13 million to make a first tranche payment to attorneys involved in arbitration of the termination of the Off-shore Patrol Vessels contract with British firm BAE. Rowley said it was Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar who said the taxpayer would save billions of dollars from the termination of the contract. He was cautioned on more than one occasion of bordering on imputing improper motives against Members of Parliament. Rowley said the Government was discriminating against the people of Chaguaramas when it abandoned the mega farm in Tucker Valley. He also said the Government discriminated in its local government allocation to the Diego Martin Regional Corporation.
He said the North-West Regional Health Authority got $9 million, while the South-West Regional Health Authority got $94 million. He welcomed the tax amnesty for defaulting citizens, saying that he took up the opportunity to file his taxes. But Rowley said despite the boast by Dookeran about the amount of money collected, it would not be sufficient to stimulate economic growth in T&T.