The Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOs (Fi­tun) has con­demned Works Min­is­ter Em­manuel George for what it de­fines as "mis­lead­ing state­ments." George was quot­ed in me­dia re­ports yes­ter­day as say­ing the re­view in essence said the high­way should be con­struct­ed.

An in­de­pen­dent re­view com­mit­tee head­ed by In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr James Arm­strong was set up by the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) to re­view the Debe to Mon De­sir leg of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way, af­ter a three-week im­passe be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh. The com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed to con­duct the re­view in 60 days.

George said the re­view found the route pro­posed by the Gov­ern­ment to be su­pe­ri­or and that it al­layed fears that eco­log­i­cal dam­age and flood­ing would oc­cur as a con­se­quence of the high­way's con­struc­tion. He al­so said the com­mit­tee ap­peared to take is­sue with the au­thor­i­ties' ap­proach to the high­way con­struc­tion.

But in a re­lease yes­ter­day, Fi­tun con­demned George for his "ob­scene po­lit­i­cal spin" on the high­way re-route is­sue.

It said: "As one of the recog­nised and promi­nent civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions that joined with the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) in avert­ing the grave po­lit­i­cal fall­out from the ex­tend­ed hunger strike by Kublals­ingh, we feel com­pelled to say to the pub­lic that the min­is­ter was very eco­nom­i­cal with the truth when he stat­ed that the high­way re­view com­mit­tee gave the go-ahead for the Debe to Mon De­sir link of the high­way.

"From the re­port that we have read, it is pel­lu­cid­ly clear that there was nev­er any state­ment by the com­mit­tee to that ef­fect." It said the Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted a breach of trust, since it was agreed that the re­port would first be sub­mit­ted to the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (Nid­co) and those in­volved were to re­frain from pub­lic com­ments on the mat­ter be­fore it was pub­lished by the JCC.

"As far as Ffi­tun is con­cerned, all oth­er par­ties held firm to their side of the agree­ment with the ex­cep­tion of the Gov­ern­ment," the re­lease said. "What is of even more con­cern to Fi­tun is that this at­tempt to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion was done im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter a Cab­i­net meet­ing at a post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence.

"That sug­gests to us that the min­is­ter's state­ment was a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the views of the en­tire Cab­i­net...This is very dis­turb­ing in the light of the com­mit­ment that was made by par­ties con­cerned in the mat­ter." The union said the JCC and Nid­co were with­hold­ing pub­li­ca­tion of the re­port, since there were pro­ce­dur­al is­sues to work out.

Signed by pres­i­dent Joseph Re­my, the re­lease ques­tioned George's in­tent in mak­ing the state­ment and said, "The re­port does not con­tain any state­ment to the ef­fect that the com­mit­tee has giv­en the 'go-ahead' for the Debe to Mon De­sir link of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way."