Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­pressed scep­ti­cism over state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy that they knew noth­ing about the con­tro­ver­sial leas­ing of a light air­craft to fight crime. He was speak­ing at a PNM meet­ing at the Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian School, Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, on Tues­day night. Row­ley al­so said Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs must ex­plain why he award­ed a con­tract for $900,772 to the T&T Air Sup­port Com­pa­ny to use a light sport air­craft for sur­veil­lance. He al­so said that even though Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki was on a plea­sure flight with one of the di­rec­tors of the T&T Air Sup­port Com­pa­ny, there was an ex­pec­ta­tion that a deal would be sealed.

"The Prime Min­is­ter raised this mat­ter to the sur­prise of all, be­cause ap­par­ent­ly they didn't know it was hap­pen­ing. A ma­jor crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive is im­ple­ment­ed and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the PM is un­aware of it?" Row­ley asked. He added: "It makes you won­der just what is go­ing on in the Gov­ern­ment. What do they talk about at Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty meet­ings? "The Prime Min­is­ter is the chair­man of the NSC. She, with a straight face, says she has no idea that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has launched a new ini­tia­tive to use this light plane as part of the crime-fight­ing tools, in a sit­u­a­tion where the Gov­ern­ment is des­per­ate to be able to come up with some­thing to fight crime." Row­ley said that showed ei­ther the in­com­pe­tence of the Gov­ern­ment or the de­ceit re­gard­ing the mat­ter.

He al­so ac­cused At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan of at­tempt­ing to sway pub­lic opin­ion by chang­ing the fo­cus of the is­sue. He said: "They are pre­tend­ing not to un­der­stand the sto­ry. We are not here de­bat­ing whether a light plane can be used for polic­ing. We are not de­bat­ing whether crime is up or down. "We are not de­bat­ing the au­thor­i­ty of the COP to buy items. The is­sue here is once you be­gin to take a de­ci­sion to spend pub­lic mon­ey, a cer­tain be­hav­iour is re­quired and a cer­tain out­come is re­quired. "The be­hav­iour is no con­flict of in­ter­est and the out­come is val­ue for mon­ey."

Row­ley al­so al­leged that there was im­pro­pri­ety af­ter the Min­istry of Works in­vit­ed bids from pri­vate com­pa­nies re­gard­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a light rail. He said the rapid rail was fierce­ly re­ject­ed by the Op­po­si­tion when the PNM was in pow­er. He added: "Lo and be­hold we buy pa­pers and we see in­vi­ta­tions to ten­der to build a light rail from Port-of-Spain to Ari­ma. 'The min­istry was invit­ing those ten­ders in breach of the law. The law says that a min­istry can­not on its own, in­vite ten­ders over $1 mil­lion. "It needs an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee in­volv­ing the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board. This rapid rail is a mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar project," Row­ley added. He al­so said Gov­ern­ment owed a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion to the peo­ple of T&T, re­gard­ing the air­craft mat­ter.