Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is de­fend­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of al­le­ga­tions against for­mer Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Keino Cox, in­sist­ing that the com­pa­ny’s board act­ed when con­cerns about his con­duct were brought to its at­ten­tion.

Padarath al­so turned the spot­light on TSTT’s ac­qui­si­tion of Am­plia un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, al­leg­ing that the trans­ac­tion took place with­out a val­u­a­tion re­port and left the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny ex­posed to more than half a bil­lion dol­lars.

He made the state­ments while con­tribut­ing to a pri­vate mo­tion brought by Op­po­si­tion chief whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les on the gov­er­nance of State en­ter­pris­es and State-con­trolled in­sti­tu­tions in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

Gon­za­les had called for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Cox and oth­ers al­leged­ly in­volved in ques­tion­able fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions at TSTT, cit­ing find­ings from an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion which he claimed re­vealed se­ri­ous pro­cure­ment ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and ex­ec­u­tive mis­con­duct.

Among the trans­ac­tions ques­tioned was a $49 mil­lion sole-se­lect con­tract in­volv­ing Hum­ming­bird Hold­ings Ltd.

How­ev­er, Padarath in­sist­ed that the Gov­ern­ment was pro­tect­ing no one and had al­lowed TSTT’s board to ad­dress the al­le­ga­tions.

“This Gov­ern­ment, and I said it from day one, we have no sa­cred cows. We are hold­ing no briefs for no­body,” Padarath de­clared.

“There were al­le­ga­tions in­side of TSTT re­lat­ed to Mr Cox. The mat­ter was dealt with when the al­le­ga­tions came be­fore the board, and that is board to have. That is chair­man to have.”

He al­so re­mind­ed Gon­za­les that Cox had served as a se­nior man­ag­er at TSTT for ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten years un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Turn­ing to the ac­qui­si­tion of Am­plia, Padarath re­vealed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­mis­sioned af­ter he as­sumed of­fice was near­ing com­ple­tion.

He al­leged that TSTT ini­tial­ly spent more than $200 mil­lion ac­quir­ing a com­pa­ny worth less than half that amount, be­fore sub­se­quent­ly pro­vid­ing a $300 mil­lion loan.

Padarath ques­tioned why Gon­za­les, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, had not in­ves­ti­gat­ed the ac­qui­si­tion.

He warned that fur­ther de­tails sur­round­ing the trans­ac­tion would be re­vealed when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion’s fi­nal re­port was com­plet­ed.