Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Nei­ther Cana­da nor the T&T Gov­ern­ment is ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the se­lec­tion of the com­pa­ny sched­uled to build the Pe­nal hos­pi­tal.The T&T Guardian has been try­ing to find out why the Cana­di­an con­glom­er­ate SNC-Lavalin was giv­en the con­tract to build the hos­pi­tal al­though it is em­broiled in bribery al­le­ga­tions.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal coun­sel­lor at the High Com­mis­sion of Cana­da, Lau­rent Morel-�-l'Huissier, said all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the ten­der­ing and se­lec­tion process of the hos­pi­tal and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre should be di­rect­ed to the T&T Gov­ern­ment.The mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar hos­pi­tal is to be built at Clarke Road, Pe­nal.In his e-mail re­sponse, Morel-�-l'Huissier said: "On May 1, 2012, the gov­ern­ments of Cana­da and T&T signed a frame­work arrange­ment to ex­pand co-op­er­a­tion be­tween our two coun­tries with re­gard to the health­care sec­tor."

On why SNC-Lavalin was cho­sen, Morel-�-l'Huissier said: "We ask that for ques­tions on the ten­der­ing and se­lec­tion process, that you please con­tact the Gov­ern­ment of T&T."But in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, CEO of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) Kurt Ram­lal said Morel-�-l'Huissier must be mis­tak­en."I think all ques­tions that re­late to the con­tract must be di­rect­ed to the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment be­cause we had no con­trol at all on the ten­der­ing or se­lec­tion of this con­tract," Ram­lal said.

In an ear­li­er state­ment, Ram­lal had said pay­ment terms had not been fi­nalised as tenets were still be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed.Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, un­der whose port­fo­lio Ude­cott falls, re­ferred ques­tions to Ram­lal. He did not re­spond to text mes­sages on whether the T&T Gov­ern­ment would be rene­go­ti­at­ing the con­tract with the Cana­di­an au­thor­i­ties. Nei­ther did Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The Pe­nal hos­pi­tal and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre is the brain­child of Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who an­nounced in 2012 that the new­ly-built hos­pi­tal would pro­vide state-of-the-art care for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases.

In her ad­dress at that time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Our vi­sion is for a hos­pi­tal which caters for all mat­ters re­lat­ing to non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases like hy­per­ten­sion and di­a­betes. There is no point that every hos­pi­tal be equipped and staffed to cater for every­thing in the world, when the spe­cial­ist ar­eas are left out."

SNC-Lavalin'strack record

In April this year, the World Bank im­posed a ten-year ban on SNC-Lavalin Inc, a sub­sidiary of SNC-Lavalin and its af­fil­i­ates. The com­pa­ny may not bid on projects fund­ed by the bank be­cause of a scan­dal over mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar bribes.A joint in­ves­ti­ga­tion by CBC News and Toron­to's Globe and Mail found a di­vi­sion of SNC-Lavalin had been us­ing a se­cret in­ter­nal ac­count­ing code for bribes on projects across Africa and Asia for years.

For­mer CEO Pierre Duhaime and an­oth­er for­mer top ex­ec­u­tive, Ri­adh Ben Ais­sa, are both fac­ing charges aris­ing from a con­tract in­volv­ing the build­ing of the McGill Uni­ver­si­ty Health Cen­tre (MUHC), Cana­da.Duhaime stepped down in March 2012 af­ter an in­de­pen­dent re­view showed he signed off on Can$56 mil­lion in pay­ments to undis­closed agents.Ben Ais­sa was ar­rest­ed in April 2012 in Switzer­land and is al­so fac­ing charges re­lat­ing to al­leged cor­rup­tion, fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing in North Africa.