Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) for pub­lish­ing a state­ment on the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of $39.6 mil­lion in funds on con­struc­tion projects in his Oropouche East con­stituen­cy.

Mooni­lal de­nies such projects were un­der­tak­en in his con­stituen­cy, adding Cepep had their in­for­ma­tion wrong.

In the full page state­ment in the press yes­ter­day, Cepep not­ed that the com­pa­ny had dis­cov­ered mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds to the tune of $39.6 mil­lion spent in Mooni­lal's con­stituen­cy.

"In a clear de­vi­a­tion from its man­date, Cepep con­struct­ed the Bun­see Trace Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre at a cost of $30 mil­lion. The Cepep com­pa­ny al­so spent $6.9 mil­lion on the con­struc­tion of box drains in the con­stituen­cy, in the months lead­ing up to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion," the state­ment ex­plained.

Cepep said that "il­le­gal spend­ing con­tributed to more than ten per cent of the com­pa­ny's $300 mil­lion debt in­her­it­ed by the cur­rent board and man­age­ment." Cepep re­port­ed to Mooni­lal since he was the then line min­is­ter.

How­ev­er, it was lat­er dis­cov­ered by the T&T Guardian that the Bun­see Trace Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed at Pe­nal Rock Road, fell with­in the Siparia con­stituen­cy of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Em­ploy­ees at two con­stituen­cy of­fices, Oropouche East and Oropouche West, con­firmed that the cen­tre was in Per­sad-Bisses­sar's con­stituen­cy. An em­ploy­ee at the Siparia of­fice al­so con­firmed that the cen­tre ex­ists in Siparia.

Told that Mooni­lal had threat­ened to take Cepep to court for defama­tion of char­ac­ter and that such projects were not con­struct­ed in his con­stituen­cy, Cepep chair­man, Trevor Lynch, in a text mes­sage, said he had "no re­sponse."

In a fol­low up text mes­sage, how­ev­er, Lynch asked who built the cen­tre.

"Did Cepep build it? In which con­stituen­cy?" he asked.

When the T&T Guardian en­quired from Lynch un­der which con­stituen­cy the con­struc­tion projects fell, he ad­vised we speak with Mooni­lal. Lynch al­so did not re­spond when asked if the cen­tre was con­struct­ed in Per­sad-Bisses­sar's con­stituen­cy.

In 2012, then min­is­ter of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters an­nounced to con­stituents that a spank­ing-new and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre would be built in Bun­see Trace, Pe­nal.

In an ex­change of What­sApp mes­sages yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal ex­pressed out­rage at Cepep's er­ro­neous state­ment, in­sist­ing that the State-owned com­pa­ny was spend­ing tax­pay­ers' mon­ey on ad­ver­tise­ments that were in­ac­cu­rate and dam­ag­ing.

"Is this val­ue for mon­ey? I in­tend to re­port the mat­ter to the board of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al," he said.

"You can write with 100 per cent ac­cu­ra­cy it (cen­tre) is not in Oropouche East. Now they now have to pay for an­oth­er ad­ver­tise­ment to cor­rect their mis­lead­ing and mis­chie­vous ad­ver­tise­ments. I ex­pect a pub­lic apol­o­gy or I will sue them for defama­tion. I will see them in court. I have al­ready con­sult­ed with my lawyers."

Asked in whose con­stituen­cy the cen­tre falls, Mooni­lal said: "Not Oropouche East. Ask Cepep."

He al­so did not iden­ti­fy who were the con­trac­tors of the project.