Yvonne Ba­boolal

A mat­ter in­volv­ing a pos­si­ble breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act by for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, Karen Tesheira, has been re­ferred by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for ac­tion. This an­nounce­ment was made in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The PM read a let­ter writ­ten by In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man, Mar­tin Far­rel, to Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2011 stat­ing that Tesheira's mat­ter was re­ferred to the DPP. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the let­ter was in re­sponse to one writ­ten by Ma­haraj in Jan­u­ary 2009 al­leg­ing that there was a breach in the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act by Tesheira.

The charge arose out of what the PM de­scribed as a "mis­han­dling" of the col­lapse of the CL Fi­nan­cial em­pire un­der the last gov­ern­ment. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­called that when Tesheira was asked if she with­drew mon­ey she had de­posit­ed in CL Fi­nan­cial (be­fore the an­nounce­ment of its col­lapse) she "gave a long ex­pla­na­tion." Not­ing, too, that then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had said all the mem­bers of his gov­ern­ment act­ed with pro­pri­ety in the mat­ter, the PM told the Low­er House: "The facts don't lie." The PM said news­pa­per re­ports pro­ceed­ed to ex­pose sev­er­al with­draw­al trans­ac­tions made by Tesheira from CL Fi­nan­cial.

She said in re­sponse to Ma­haraj's al­le­ga­tions, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion wrote him dis­clos­ing that the com­mis­sion was con­duct­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. "The com­mis­sion said the mat­ter was re­ferred to the DPP for ac­tion," she added. Per­sad-Bisses­sar then ex­plained to mem­bers how a mat­ter end­ed up be­ing re­ferred to the DPP for ac­tion. Quot­ing leg­is­la­tion, she said the com­mis­sion must be sat­is­fied that there were rea­son­able grounds that an of­fence was com­mit­ted. She said the com­mis­sion was of the view that there were rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect that an of­fence was com­mit­ted (by Tesheira). "We will await to see the find­ings of the DPP. This mat­ter will not go away so eas­i­ly," the PM warned.