Denyse Renne

Deputy chair­man of the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (AATT) Kurt Ajod­ha has ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion, Trans­port Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma con­firmed yes­ter­day.Ajod­ha, whose aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions were queried by Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert dur­ing de­bate in Par­lia­ment last week on a bill to add $2.8 bil­lion to na­tion­al bud­get, re­port­ed­ly re­ceived a stipend of $7,000 a month for be­ing on the board.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Im­bert had dis­closed that Ajod­ha did not pos­sess the qual­i­fi­ca­tions stat­ed on his CV.In re­sponse to a text mes­sage yes­ter­day, Shar­ma con­firmed that Ajod­ha had re­signed and that he did not pos­sess the qual­i­fi­ca­tions claimed on his CV.Sources at AATT yes­ter­day said the sit­u­a­tion now means the AATT can­not deal with con­tract ten­ders, since the top two mem­bers of the board are now un­avail­able.

AATT chair­man Ger­ald Hadeed is on sick leave.The T&T Guardian was told that board mem­bers Prem­c­hand Sa­hadeo, Ruthven God­dard, Rishi Ma­hadeo, Ju­dith Bali­ram-Ra­moutar, Maria Gon­salves and Carlisle Marks were sched­uled to hold a ten­ders com­mit­tee meet­ing yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, they were told by cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Shan­non Rudd that the meet­ing would be ad­journed in­def­i­nite­ly be­cause of Ajod­ha's un­suit­abil­i­ty.

The in­struc­tion to can­cel the meet­ing was giv­en by the Trans­port Min­istry, the Guardian learnt.Hadeed, how­ev­er, has in­di­cat­ed he would be re­sum­ing du­ties as chair­man soon. He was in­jured in an ac­ci­dent and had not been at­tend­ing board meet­ings. Ajod­ha had been act­ing as chair­man in Hadeed's ab­sence.

Ajod­ha's de­par­ture means the board is un­able to meet to dis­cuss the award of mil­lions of dol­lars worth in con­tracts, since ac­cord­ing to the board's con­sti­tu­tion such pro­ceed­ings must be chaired by ei­ther a chair­man or act­ing chair­man.

How­ev­er, fears that the board may not be prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed when Hadeed re­turns were dis­missed, as Ma­hadeo pos­sess­es a de­gree in en­gi­neer­ing.Ac­cord­ing to the AATT con­sti­tu­tion, which was amend­ed un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, the board re­quires an en­gi­neer, lawyer and ac­coun­tant among its mem­bers. With­out such port­fo­lios, the board would not be prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed and its ac­tions could be called in­to ques­tion in a court of law.

AATT sources said when he was seek­ing the post, Ajod­ha had sub­mit­ted his CV to the Boards Com­mit­tee head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.Oth­er mem­bers of the Boards Com­mit­tee in­clude At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har, Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts and Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal.Sources said any time a board se­lec­tion has to be made, the line min­is­ter is al­so asked to at­tend the se­lec­tion meet­ing.

"And in this case Min­is­ter Shar­ma was called in," the source said.Adding hat it was Shar­ma who rec­om­mend­ed Ajod­ha, the source said: "Ob­vi­ous­ly they did not do any thor­ough checks."

Im­bert sheds light

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate, Im­bert claimed Ajod­ha's CV showed he earned a BSc in civ­il en­gi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), a bach­e­lor of ar­chi­tec­ture from the New York In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy and a project man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion from the Project Man­age­ment In­sti­tute."Mr Speak­er, I am told the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies has no record of this fel­low ever ac­quir­ing a bach­e­lor's de­gree in en­gi­neer­ing.

"This is the deputy chair­man of the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty, chair­man of the ten­ders com­mit­tee. I am told that the New York In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, School of Ar­chi­tec­ture has no record of this gen­tle­man at­tend­ing or ac­quir­ing a bach­e­lor of ar­chi­tec­ture. Sim­i­lar­ly with the project man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al, Mr Speak­er," Im­bert had said.Im­bert said he al­so checked the list of en­gi­neers reg­is­tered with the Board of En­gi­neer­ing in T&T "and there isn't a sin­gle Ajod­ha on this list.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Im­bert said Ajod­ha's lack of qual­i­fi­ca­tions meant he was not fit to be on the board or the ten­ders com­mit­tee."I would have thought once it be­came known he is not qual­i­fied he should be re­moved," Im­bert said.He said in his opin­ion, how­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment usu­al­ly takes a long time to deal with such mat­ters.Ef­forts to con­tact Ajod­ha yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful, as all calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.