Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds says Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj paid four farm­ers $2.5 mil­lion to cut grass at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Hinds made the claim while con­tribut­ing to yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on a bill to amend the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPost) Act.

Hinds ini­tial­ly of­fered Ma­haraj a chance to re­spond in the de­bate but he de­clined. When he at­tempt­ed to re­spond mo­ments lat­er he was not al­lowed to do so. In an in­ter­view with re­porters at the tea break Ma­haraj dared Hinds to make his state­ment out­side the Par­lia­ment.

He de­nied Hinds' claim. "No min­is­ter awards any con­tract. I don't know if that ob­tained un­der the PNM (Gov­ern­ment)," Ma­haraj added. He said the con­tract was han­dled by the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty board. "That par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent (con­tract) has un­der­gone a rig­or­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in which the low­est per­son who ten­dered won the con­tract. So I wish he would say it out­side."

Hinds al­so said the min­is­ter was re­spon­si­ble for a $1.5 mil­lion con­tract to paint the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) ter­mi­nal build­ing in San Juan. Ma­haraj al­so dis­missed Hind's claim. He said: "It was an­oth­er mis­chie­vous state­ment that he con­tin­ues to make."

He said he has had to de­ny that claim on more than one oc­ca­sion in the past. Ma­haraj said the con­tract was "not for paint­ing and it was not $1.5 mil­lion. "It in­clud­ed re­pair to the roof at the San Juan ter­mi­nal as well as in­fra­struc­ture work with­in the mall it­self, as well as paint­ing."

Ma­haraj said the cost of the con­tract was "be­low $1.5 mil­lion." He al­so de­nied Hinds' claim that the con­trac­tor had gone away. Ma­haraj said work on the project had stopped pend­ing fur­ther di­rec­tives from the PTSC to the con­trac­tor. Ma­haraj said Hinds should make his com­ments out­side the Par­lia­ment.