Richard?Lord

Roti meals served at a Di­vali din­ner host­ed by then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Oc­to­ber 2014 cost be­tween $65 and $75 per per­son, while fresh juices, as­sort­ed soft drinks and wa­ter were pur­chased for $139,000.

But even as he re­leased the de­tails of the in­voic­es to the now con­tro­ver­sial top­ic, ti­tled "roti-gate" in some quar­ters, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Stu­art Young, in­sist­ed the is­sue was not the event but the reck­less spend­ing by the for­mer regime.

Speak­ing at me­dia con­fer­ence at his Gov­ern­ment Plaza, Port-of-Spain of­fice, Young said three cater­ers were used for the event which catered for 900 peo­ple.

J&J Roti Plus, Young said, catered food at a cost of $75 per per­son. The in­voice did not spec­i­fy the con­tents of the meal but in­di­cat­ed that it was for 900 peo­ple at a cost of $67,500.

An­oth­er com­pa­ny, S&S Cater­ers, of­fered its meal at a cost of $65 for 900 peo­ple. The roti con­tained rice, khari, chan­na, aloo, pump­kin, man­go, soya, peas, chatainge, sal­ad and moth­er-in-law (hot pep­per) at a cost of $58,500. The third cater­er, An­mold Gan­gaper­sad T/A A&C Cater­ers, al­so pre­pared roti at a cost of $65 per per­son at $88,350. It catered for 1050 peo­ple, the in­voice said.

Young al­so re­leased a fourth in­voice from Boomerang Fast Foods Ltd show­ing $139,000 "for fresh juice, as­sort­ed soft drinks and wa­ter."

Deal­ing with the $139,000 for an event which did not serve al­chohol, Young said: "When you spend al­most $140,000 on juice and soft drink, how much juice, soft drink and wa­ter does one re­al­ly drink at an event?"

Young re­it­er­at­ed that the is­sue at hand was not linked in any way to race but "one of wan­ton reck­less abuse of the trea­sury spend­ing that took place pri­or to Sep­tem­ber 2015 and will not be re­peat­ed by this ad­min­is­tra­tion."

Ac­cord­ing to Young, there was no oth­er mo­tive be­hind Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's pro­nounce­ment on the Di­vali din­ner oth­er than, at $1.6 mil­lion, it was one of the most ex­pen­sive, not­ing the PNM Gov­ern­ment's re­cent Di­vali din­ner was just over $220,000.

Giv­ing fur­ther ex­am­ples, he said the PP's Chil­dren Christ­mas par­ty in 2014 cost more than $1 mil­lion, while the PNM's in 2015 cost just over $452,000. The PP's Bap­tist Din­ner in 2014 cost more than $938,000, while the PNM's in 2015 cost just over $257,000 and the PP's Eman­ci­pa­tion Din­ner in 2014 cost $611,000 and the PNM's last year cost $301,000.

Young said an au­dit in­to the ex­pen­di­ture un­der the for­mer gov­ern­ment on those events may now be con­duct­ed "to as­cer­tain how there is this great dis­par­i­ty in price." He then said be­cause the mat­ter was now in the pub­lic "it is some­thing that I think we will ask a par­tic­u­lar arm to look at."

He said there was no ev­i­dence avail­able to con­firm that the event catered for 4,000 peo­ple, as was be­ing claimed by Op­po­si­tion MP Bar­ry Padarath.

The roti din­ner has been among the ma­jor talk­ing points on so­cial and tra­di­tion­al me­dia since Row­ley raised it last week, with both par­ties us­ing it on the lo­cal gov­ern­ment plat­form.

Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal last week urged sup­port­ers of the UNC to throw a roti in the Prime Min­is­ter's face. Young said such a com­ment was very dis­taste­ful from a se­nior politi­cian like Mooni­lal.

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CATER­ERS RE­SPOND

CNC3 yes­ter­day con­tact­ed A&C Cater­ers and an of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, con­firmed they charged $65 a plate and pro­vid­ed full meals and plates for 1,050 peo­ple for the PP's Di­vali event. But this was all the in­for­ma­tion they were will­ing to pro­vide.

At J&J, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive said they pro­vid­ed full plates for 900 peo­ple with all the trim­mings. They said they didn't know any­one at the PM Of­fice, but some­one rec­om­mend­ed them for the job and they sent in a pro­pos­al and were ac­cept­ed.

An of­fi­cial at Boomerang, who al­so did not want to be named, said they were asked to pro­vide a pre­mi­um ser­vice for the event and were asked to serve fresh juices, co­conut wa­ter, soft drinks and wa­ter in a high stan­dard lay­out. The of­fi­cial said, how­ev­er, that the price was very rea­son­able since they were asked to cater for 2,500 peo­ple.