Yvonne Ba­boolal

Around the mid­dle of Ju­ly last year a top po­lice of­fi­cer went on a plea­sure ride in a Cess­na 172 light air­plane with a for­mer US air­man Dirk Barnes, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of T&T Air Sup­port Co Ltd (TTASC). In De­cem­ber last year the po­lice ser­vice signed a con­tract with the TTASC for the lease of two Zenith light air­craft for close to $1mil­lion for a three months pe­ri­od. The leisure ride was con­firmed yes­ter­day by Ed­die Dalls­ingh, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Navi-Comm Avion­ics Ltd (NAL), who said the Cess­na was his com­pa­ny's air­craft. Dalls­ingh said it was his friend Daniel Con­don who used his air­plane reg­u­lar­ly. Dalls­ingh, who de­scribed him­self as an air­craft en­gi­neer with some 39 years ex­pe­ri­ence, shot in­to the news re­cent­ly when his name (Ed­die) was called in Par­lia­ment as one of the two senders of emails con­cern­ing the ride in­volv­ing "Jack."

Op­po­si­tion MP Don­na Cox made the ex­pose in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day as she queried the sign­ing of the con­tract be­tween the po­lice ser­vice and the TTASC. Col­league, PNM MP Colm Im­bert, al­so read e-mails be­fore the Low­er House be­tween "Ed­die and Dan­ny". Com­ing for­ward to con­firm that the po­lice of­fi­cer did, in­deed, fly in his air­craft, Dalls­ingh yes­ter­day said he met Con­don in Au­gust 2010 and in­tro­duced his pro­pos­al to him in Oc­to­ber. He said Con­don be­came his friend. Con­don lat­er in­tro­duced Barnes to him in Jan­u­ary last year, he said. "But be­fore this Dan had in­tro­duced my pro­pos­al to Dirk with­out my know­ing. Lat­er, Dirk formed TTASC." He re­called, "Dan was my friend and is a pi­lot and he would reg­u­lar­ly use my air­craft for leisure rides. "I know of one in­stance in Ju­ly which he, the of­fi­cer and Dirk went on a ride to­geth­er." Dalls­ingh made the dis­clo­sures as he re­peat­ed his call at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at his com­pa­ny's Pi­ar­co of­fice for Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy and chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Dr Ramesh De­osaran to launch an en­quiry in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the award of the con­tract to the TTASC.

In a fax sent from the of­fice of at­tor­ney Dave Per­sad, Dalls­ingh stat­ed, "The com­pa­ny (NAL) in­tends to re­fute many of the state­ments be­ing made by Dirk Barnes of TTASC with doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence. "We are of the view that is­suance of this con­tract was not above board and trans­par­ent." Dalls­ingh's main ground for this charge is that his pro­pos­al to the po­lice ser­vice to sup­ply the Zenith air­craft was not giv­en equal treat­ment as Barnes'. Stress­ing that the Gov­ern­ment was not in­volved in the is­suance of the con­tract and that no blame should be cast up­on the Gov­ern­ment he said it was be­tween the po­lice ser­vice and the TTASC. Dalls­ingh said on Oc­to­ber 6, 2010 he wrote Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs re­quest­ing an ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty to present his pro­pos­al to use the Zenith air­craft in the fight against crime and was not suc­cess­ful. He said on De­cem­ber 31 Gibbs wrote him back stat­ing that all such pre­sen­ta­tions must be made to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry.

He claimed that he was the one who had been the lead­ing, if not on­ly, ad­vo­cate for light sports air­craft for aer­i­al sur­veil­lance and sup­port pur­pos­es in the fight against crime. He fur­ther won­dered if his idea was hi­jacked. Not­ing that his ef­fort to present his pro­pos­al was well doc­u­ment­ed, Dalls­ingh said he did a pre­sen­ta­tion to for­mer PNM na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Howard Chin Lee since 2003. "On Au­gust 44, 2004 fur­ther pre­sen­ta­tions were made to Mar­tin Joseph, then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter. "Pur­suant to in­struc­tions from Joseph, pre­sen­ta­tions were made on Au­gust 5, 2004 to the army, Coast Guard and the Air Wing Di­vi­sion. He said in June 2010, he made a pre­sen­ta­tion to Sandy. Dalls­ingh, clear­ly of­fend­ed, asked, "Why was NAL not af­ford­ed the same cour­tesy/treat­ment as the TTASC?