Jensen La Vende  

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive  

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion (IC) of “de­lib­er­ate­ly at­tempt­ing to tar­nish my rep­u­ta­tion” af­ter he was in­formed that he is now the sub­ject of an­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion.  

This is the third time in his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer that Row­ley is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the IC for al­leged­ly breach­ing the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act (IPLA) and the sec­ond time since be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter.  

This lat­est in­ves­ti­ga­tion was sparked by al­le­ga­tions that con­tracts award­ed to a com­pa­ny owned by his friend Al­lan Warn­er were not above board.  

On the two pre­vi­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Row­ley was cleared of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.  

Row­ley, in re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day evening about this lat­est in­ves­ti­ga­tion, said, “The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, act­ing in con­cert with oth­ers, is de­lib­er­ate­ly at­tempt­ing to tar­nish my rep­u­ta­tion by at­tempt­ing to find ways to as­so­ciate me with con­tracts and awards that I have had ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with.”

The lat­est in­ves­ti­ga­tion comes months af­ter he was cleared by the IC of any wrong­do­ings in his de­c­la­ra­tion of a To­ba­go town­house.

The sub­stance of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion cen­tres on the award­ing of con­tracts to the man who built and sold Row­ley the said town­house.  

In his What­sApp re­sponse, Row­ley said, “The Com­mis­sion, on its own vo­li­tion, it says, is go­ing to re-open an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to my in­volve­ment. This is a grand fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion, hop­ing to slan­der me by as­so­ci­at­ing me with con­tracts with which I have had ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with.”  

The IC let­ter

Guardian Me­dia re­ceived a copy of a let­ter sent to Row­ley dat­ed No­vem­ber 23 in­form­ing him of the de­ci­sion to be­gin an in­de­pen­dent probe.  

The let­ter was cap­tioned: Com­mence­ment of in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to po­ten­tial breach­es of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act (IPLA) Chap­ter 22:01, aris­ing from the award of con­tracts to Mr Al­lan Warn­er and/or com­pa­nies with which he is af­fil­i­at­ed or as­so­ci­at­ed and has an in­ter­est there­in.  

“Please be ad­vised that the Com­mis­sion has there­fore found it nec­es­sary to in­ves­ti­gate whether the gov­ern­ment con­tracts award­ed to Mr Warn­er and/or com­pa­nies with which he is af­fil­i­at­ed or as­so­ci­at­ed have been grant­ed in con­for­mi­ty with, in­ter alia, ad­her­ence to your oblig­a­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties un­der the act. Es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the ac­cep­tance of the gift.”  

The let­ter end­ed with the IC in­form­ing Row­ley that its in­ves­ti­ga­tors would con­tact him and asked that he co­op­er­ate with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion which it hopes to con­clude in a time­ly man­ner.    

Row­ley said that af­ter he re­ceived the let­ter, he passed it on to his at­tor­neys who re­spond­ed to the IC.  

“It is my view that in the most in­com­pre­hen­si­ble of ways, the Com­mis­sion in at­tempt­ing to gen­er­ate some­thing here has based its ac­tions on specif­i­cal­ly four con­tracts, iden­ti­fied by the Com­mis­sion. Two of these con­tracts were not done by Warn­er (as ini­tial­ly al­leged by the UNC) and the oth­er two are con­tracts award­ed in To­ba­go by the au­tonomous To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

“Clear­ly the Com­mis­sion knows some­thing that no­body else knows so I await the out­come of their ex­pe­di­tion. It is clear that your ap­proach to me now, and the plac­ing of this mat­ter in­to the pub­lic do­main is the ori­gin and in­tent of this at­tack on my char­ac­ter, with­out a shred of ev­i­dence to sup­port the con­cerns of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.”

The IC said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion stemmed from in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main “which has come to the at­ten­tion of the Com­mis­sion.” It added that specif­i­cal­ly the con­tracts that were award­ed to Warn­er and or his com­pa­nies re­gard­ing four state projects were the im­pe­tus for their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.    

The con­tracts are:    

The con­struc­tion of a ter­mi­nal at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, To­ba­go.  

The Prime Min­is­ter’s To­ba­go Res­i­dence, in­clud­ing an al­leged con­tract award­ed with re­spect to paving the dri­ve­way there­of  

Con­tracts award­ed to Warn­er Con­struc­tion and San­i­ta­tion Lim­it­ed dur­ing the year 2021 by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly  

The Shir­van Es­tate Land De­vel­op­ment gov­ern­ment project on the is­land of To­ba­go.  

“The in­stant in­ves­ti­ga­tion has al­so been prompt­ed by the Com­mis­sion’s find­ings that you did ac­cept a gift, that be­ing a dis­count of $400,000 more or less, as re­gards the pur­chase of a town­house by you and your wife, Mrs Sharon Clark-Row­ley, from In­ez In­vest­ments Lim­it­ed,” the let­ter said.  

The let­ter said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was sparked by the IC’s ini­tia­tive in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 33(a) of the IPLA.  

Sec­tion 33 of the Act reads: “The Com­mis­sion—(a) may on its own ini­tia­tive; or (b) shall up­on the com­plaint of any mem­ber of the pub­lic, con­sid­er and en­quire in­to any al­leged breach­es of the act or any al­le­ga­tions of cor­rupt or dis­hon­est con­duct.”  

It added that the con­tents of the let­ter were pre­vi­ous­ly dis­closed to Row­ley in a let­ter dat­ed June 29, when he was cleared of any al­leged wrong­do­ing. The IC said while that mat­ter was set­tled, the fact that it found Row­ley to have ac­cept­ed a gift, “may cre­ate pos­si­ble sit­u­a­tions in the af­ter­math of the ac­cep­tance of the gift and/or per­son­al ben­e­fit which may be con­trary to the Act, and more specif­i­cal­ly its Code of Con­duct.”  

Row­ley and Warn­er’s re­la­tion­ship has been used in the po­lit­i­cal are­na for years. When the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two was raised af­ter he bought the In­ez prop­er­ty, Row­ley at a me­dia con­fer­ence in Au­gust said he and Warn­er had been busi­ness part­ners since 2008 with his To­ba­go farm.  

Warn­er owns 25 per cent of the farm while Row­ley owns the oth­er 75 per cent. At the time of the farm pur­chase, Row­ley was a PNM back­bencher af­ter his pub­lic spat with then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.  

Keon Warn­er, when called last Wednes­day, said the al­le­ga­tion that the Warn­er com­pa­nies were favourably se­lect­ed be­cause of a re­la­tion­ship with the Prime Min­is­ter was “to­tal non­sense.” He gave no oth­er com­ment.  

BOX

Row­ley VS the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion  

In 2021, Op­po­si­tion MP Sad­dam Ho­sein claimed that Row­ley’s In­ez Gate town­house was not de­clared on Form B of his de­c­la­ra­tion, on­ly Form A, there­by breach­ing the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act.  

In de­fend­ing him­self at a me­dia con­fer­ence on Au­gust 9, Row­ley said Form A did not re­quire him to de­clare prop­er­ties, on­ly land. He said while the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion sug­gest­ed that the law be changed to in­clude land and build­ing, un­til such time, he broke no law. He even went fur­ther to chas­tise the IC at the me­dia con­fer­ence for fail­ing to deal with the is­sue when it was first raised.  

Row­ley was al­so ac­cused of re­ceiv­ing a gift af­ter he paid $1.2 mil­lion for a house val­ued at $1.6 mil­lion and paid stamp du­ties for a prop­er­ty val­ued at $1.6. It said Row­ley’s at­tor­neys would have dealt with the stamp du­ties and it could not de­ter­mine that the Prime Min­is­ter know­ing­ly made false state­ments based on the stamp du­ty dis­crep­an­cy. It said Row­ley did no wrong in stat­ing that the val­ue of the prop­er­ty was what he paid for it.  

At a me­dia con­fer­ence in Au­gust, Row­ley ex­plained how he man­aged to pay less for his home com­pared to his neigh­bours. He ex­plained that it was the norm in pur­chas­ing prop­er­ty that when one buys off the draw­ings, be­fore con­struc­tion, to get a dis­count­ed price com­pared to those who pur­chase af­ter con­struc­tion be­gins.    

“I agreed on a price ($1.2 mil­lion) when those town­hous­es were on pa­per. By the time they were built, and oth­er peo­ple came and saw the thing (de­vel­op­ment) and liked it and want­ed to pay more, what does that have to do with me?” he said.  

Af­ter Row­ley was cleared of sup­posed malfea­sance, the IC said while the IPLA does not dis­al­low those sub­ject­ed to the law to re­ceive gifts when com­pared to the prices paid by oth­ers for hous­es with­in the same de­vel­op­ment, Row­ley, who paid less, did re­ceive a gift but it was not as a re­sult of him be­ing the Prime Min­is­ter.  

Row­ley has main­tained that he obeyed the law re­gard­ing the town­house and chas­tised the IC for fail­ing to make that clear.  

“An In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion is sup­posed to have in­tegri­ty. All of this could have been avoid­ed if the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion had told the pop­u­la­tion that I did dis­close (the town­house) in my de­c­la­ra­tion (form A) and that form B does not re­quire dis­clo­sure, and they have made pro­pos­als to Cab­i­net to have build­ings dis­closed in form B.”

BOX


Projects un­der probe

The air­port ex­pan­sion  

In 2020, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter said the up­grade of the air­port, which in­clud­ed land ac­qui­si­tion, would rack up a bill of $1.2 bil­lion–$870 mil­lion for the con­struc­tion of a new ter­mi­nal, $36 mil­lion to up­grade the ex­ist­ing ter­mi­nal and $300 mil­lion to com­plete land ac­qui­si­tion.

The con­tract was award­ed to Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion (Caribbean) Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.  

The fol­low­ing year Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ques­tioned Row­ley on whether Warn­er was part of the con­struc­tion of the air­port, ac­cus­ing Warn­er of be­ing Row­ley’s friend.    

In re­sponse, Row­ley said, “Madam Speak­er, every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go is my friend, in­clud­ing Al­lan Warn­er. But I am not aware that Al­lan Warn­er is in­volved in this project at Crown Point.”  

Af­ter a site vis­it last year, Row­ley post­ed on his Face­book page that $200 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for the con­struc­tion of the ter­mi­nal and as­so­ci­at­ed fa­cil­i­ties in the 2023 fis­cal year. An ad­di­tion­al $31.7 mil­lion was giv­en to the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty to con­tin­ue up­grades in in­fra­struc­ture and se­cu­ri­ty works.  

The project was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2022 but was de­layed when the pan­dem­ic shut­down con­struc­tion.    

The PM’s To­ba­go res­i­dence  

In 2019, the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) said the cost to “de­mol­ish the ter­mite-in­fest­ed di­lap­i­dat­ed struc­ture and to con­struct a new of­fi­cial res­i­dence” was $17,998,114.48.  

The con­tract was award­ed to Parks In­ter­na­tion­al, while Row­ley said Warn­er’s com­pa­ny on­ly paved the dri­ve­way.    

Last year Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that the con­struc­tion of the res­i­dence had a bud­get of $22 mil­lion and that ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ments, name­ly se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, were iden­ti­fied and re­sult­ed in a vari­a­tion of $8.1 mil­lion.  

It said Ude­cott en­gaged an in­de­pen­dent quan­ti­ty sur­vey­or to as­sess fur­ther works which were then val­ued at $8.6 mil­lion. As a re­sult of the vari­ance, the con­struc­tion cost was re­vised to $37.1 mil­lion.  

Con­tracts award­ed to Warn­er Con­struc­tion and San­i­ta­tion Lim­it­ed  

In June, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine claimed that there was a plot by the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to pay Warn­er Con­struc­tion and San­i­ta­tion Lim­it­ed $60 mil­lion for works sup­pos­ed­ly com­plet­ed.  

Warn­er’s son and spokesman for the com­pa­ny, Keon Warn­er con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia then that a ver­bal re­quest was made for $60 mil­lion since the com­pa­ny was in a fi­nan­cial pick­le and need­ed out­stand­ing dues.  

The younger Warn­er said then that the com­pa­ny re­ceived $32.2 mil­lion in pay­ment from the THA and was still owed $47 mil­lion for projects de­liv­ered in 2021. He added in or­der to com­plete those projects his com­pa­ny had to se­cure loans which need­ed to be re­paid. As a re­sult of the non-pay­ment, he need­ed to dis­miss 300 work­ers and close his hard­ware.

Shir­van Es­tate Land De­vel­op­ment  

In Oc­to­ber 2019, the THA be­gan clear­ing lands at both Shir­van and Cove De­vel­op­ments to re­lo­cate res­i­dents re­lo­cat­ed by the air­port ex­pan­sion. The THA said the land was made avail­able at rates sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than mar­ket val­ue. The res­i­den­tial lots at Shir­van De­vel­op­ment were sold at $30 per square foot, while com­mer­cial lands at COVE were sold at $50 per square foot.