Gail Alexan­der

To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin's cred­it card card was not used in ac­cor­dance with agreed terms and con­di­tions for the card since the min­is­ter con­tra­vened a con­di­tion by mak­ing lo­cal cash ad­vances, PP House leader Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed yes­ter­day.

Mooni­lal gave in­for­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion in re­ply­ing to an Op­po­si­tion ques­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ses­sion. Al­leyne-Top­pin was re­cent­ly spot­light­ed af­ter Op­po­si­tion leader Kei­th Row­ley said she used the card for var­i­ous pur­pos­es it ought not to have been used for.

Top­pin had chalked up a $68,048.16 bal­ance on the cred­it card. Trans­ac­tions in­clud­ed cash ad­vances from ATMs across the coun­try for sums rang­ing from $200 to $3,500. She al­so used the card to pay bills at var­i­ous lo­cal busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing Ru­by Tues­day ($804); Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel ($1,699.19) and Bel­la For­ma Re­sorts ($2,433.25).

Al­leyne-Top­pin lat­er ad­mit­ted to us­ing the card for lo­cal trans­ac­tions, in­clud­ing re­fresh­ments dur­ing busi­ness meet­ings. She said she was not aware of the reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the card and promised to pay back the monies used. Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan al­so sub­se­quent­ly said he had used the card for var­i­ous trans­ac­tions for the min­istry. But he said he main­tained a sur­plus on the card and had put mon­ey back on it when he had used it.

Mooni­lal, an­swer­ing Row­ley's ques­tion on the is­sue con­cern­ing over­all use of the card, ex­plained that the in­stru­ment was Cab­i­net-sanc­tioned in 2004. He said el­i­gi­ble peo­ple could ac­cess the card fa­cil­i­ty through First Cit­i­zens and that use of the card was not manda­to­ry.

He said if a per­son ac­cepts the card, it must be used for all of­fi­cial over­seas trav­el and lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment ex­pens­es. Cab­i­net ap­proval is nec­es­sary be­fore a card is used for trav­el. Mooni­lal said a card was not to be used for pri­vate pur­pos­es or for­eign en­ter­tain­ment. Nor are lo­cal cash ad­vances to be made with the card.

He said, how­ev­er, that cash with­drawals were al­lowed while on over­seas trav­el. Mooni­lal said the charges for such with­drawals must be borne by the card hold­er. He al­so said the card hold­er was re­spon­si­ble for prompt pay­ment of all charges on his ac­count and was per­son­al­ly li­able for all in­debt­ed­ness aris­ing from the card's use

"The card was not used in ac­cor­dance with the terms and con­di­tions, since the min­is­ter act­ed in con­tra­ven­tion of con­di­tion num­ber eight by mak­ing lo­cal cash ad­vances," Mooni­lal added.