Yvonne Ba­boolal

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has writ­ten to chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran, ask­ing him to re­view the award of a con­tract by the Po­lice Ser­vice to the T&T Air Sup­port Co Ltd as it is mat­ter deemed fit for an ur­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Along with the let­ter to De­osaran yes­ter­day, Row­ley sent copies of doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to the pro­cure­ment of air ser­vices (two light air­craft) un­der the hand of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs. Row­ley told De­osaran: "It is a mat­ter of con­cern to us at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion that due to the ques­tion­able pro­cure­ment process which was in­volved, the pub­lic in­ter­est has not been pro­tect­ed. "We al­so take is­sue with the con­duct of the Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of the de­vel­op­ments record­ed in these doc­u­ments."

List­ing oth­er con­cerns, he ques­tioned whether the TTASC had an Air Op­er­a­tors Cer­tifi­cate which was re­quired from the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (CAA) to en­gage in com­mer­cial avi­a­tion in T&T. Row­ley al­so want­ed to know who were the li­censed pi­lots, en­gi­neers and ma­chin­ists ap­proved by the CAA. He added that to en­gage in com­mer­cial avi­a­tion in T&T the air­craft must be reg­is­tered in T&T which would re­quire the is­suance of an ex­port cer­tifi­cate of air­wor­thi­ness from the coun­try of ori­gin be­fore it could be reg­is­tered un­der the CAA. "The Zenith CH 750 Light Sports Air­craft Kit is a light sports air­craft reg­is­tered with the FAA for use in am­a­teur avi­a­tion in the USA. It is nei­ther cer­ti­fied nor ap­proved by the FAA for com­mer­cial use," he stat­ed. Row­ley said the CAA reg­u­la­tions did not in­clude a cat­e­go­ry for such light sports air­craft to op­er­ate in com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties but in a pri­vate cat­e­go­ry. Ef­forts by the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion on the mat­ter from the CAA proved fu­tile. The T&T Guardian was told on­ly the di­rec­tor could re­veal who was giv­en ap­proval to op­er­ate an air­craft and that he was out of the coun­try.