Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Il­le­gal or­der?

UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day called out Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for an ex­pla­na­tion on a three-month Or­der which ex­empts from the pro­cure­ment law, the pro­vi­sion of ser­vices for events as­so­ci­at­ed with vis­its by for­eign dig­ni­taries—and which Ho­sein claims is il­le­gal since it lacks Par­lia­ment ap­proval.

“This was done on the eve of the Cari­com sum­mit, but Min­is­ter Im­bert, you have to think again. You must sum­mon the Par­lia­ment for us to dis­cuss it. Be­cause this in­volves ex­empt­ing out of the pro­cure­ment law, goods and ser­vices and you can give any Tom, Dick, or Har­ry a con­tract for any amount of mon­ey,” Ho­sein added yes­ter­day.

Ho­sein spoke about the is­sue at the Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing in Port-of-Spain, query­ing if the Or­der’s three-month time frame might al­low the Gov­ern­ment to “hand­pick” ser­vices for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions cam­paign­ing.

Im­bert did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s What­sApp queries or calls about the is­sue. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga al­so did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia queries.

Yes­ter­day, Ho­sein said the law for the Fi­nance Min­istry to make an Or­der to ex­empt items from the pro­cure­ment law was passed in 2020, but such Or­ders re­quire Par­lia­ment ap­proval.

How­ev­er, he said on June 29, the eve of Cari­com’s sum­mit and 50th An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, Im­bert signed an Or­der stat­ing the Pro­cure­ment Act does not ap­ply to the pro­vi­sions of ser­vice for events as­so­ci­at­ed with vis­its by for­eign heads of state, for­eign heads of Gov­ern­ment or for­eign dig­ni­taries to the T&T Gov­ern­ment. The Or­der con­tin­ues for three months.

Hold­ing the Or­der, Ho­sein added, “On the eve of the Cari­com meet­ing he pub­lished this Or­der to say any ex­pen­di­ture as­so­ci­at­ed with the vis­its of these Heads of Gov­ern­ment isn’t sub­ject to pro­cure­ment!

“The re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Cari­com crime sym­po­sium took two days and cost tax­pay­ers $3.4 mil­lion. The re­cent (Cari­com meet­ing) was a five-day vis­it, could you imag­ine what that cost would be? I have no prob­lem with T&T host­ing for­eign dig­ni­taries but it must be done with trans­paren­cy and in ac­cor­dance with the law.”

Claim­ing the law is il­le­gal, Ho­sein said the amend­ment to the Pro­cure­ment Act in 2020 states such Or­ders must be made by af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment.

“That means the Or­der has to be laid and de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate and passed in both Hous­es. But this Or­der nev­er saw the Par­lia­ment, was nev­er de­bat­ed, or reached the Red House. Yet Im­bert, by sig­na­ture, is ex­empt­ing costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the events,” he added.

Ho­sein cit­ed Im­bert’s De­cem­ber 8, 2020, ad­dress in the Sen­ate on the amend­ment to the pro­cure­ment law where (Im­bert) said, “If any ad­di­tion­al ser­vices are to be added to the list of ex­empt ser­vices it will re­quire de­bate and a vote in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.”

Ho­sein al­so not­ed Im­bert’s ad­dress in the House on De­cem­ber 11, 2020, say­ing, “In or­der to give the Par­lia­ment the pow­er to ap­prove or not ap­prove any new ser­vices that the min­is­ter might want to add by Or­der, we changed the word ‘neg­a­tive’ to ‘af­fir­ma­tive’. So, there­fore, these things must be de­bat­ed and must be ap­proved by both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.”

The UNC MP added, “So Im­bert ad­mit­ted that if he wants to ex­empt any ad­di­tion­al ser­vices, he has to come to Par­lia­ment and get ap­proval. So this Or­der can­not be in op­er­a­tion un­less af­firmed by both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.”

‘Sus­pi­cious tim­ing dur­ing LG Elec­tions'

Ho­sein said the three-month pe­ri­od was sus­pi­cious since the Cari­com meet­ing be­gan on Ju­ly 1 and end­ed on Ju­ly 4. Not­ing the Au­gust 14 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, Ho­sein asked if the three months were meant for the Gov­ern­ment to get re­sources to use for LG cam­paign­ing.

Since Par­lia­ment is on a break, Ho­sein said that to com­ply with the law, the Gov­ern­ment should with­draw the Or­der and re­con­vene Par­lia­ment for an ex­tra­or­di­nary sit­ting and jus­ti­fy why the Or­der was done for three months, over the LG Elec­tions. He felt if there is no pro­cure­ment process the PNM Gov­ern­ment could “hand­pick” which con­trac­tors they want.

Ho­sein not­ed the Or­der’s time frame would in­clude the pe­ri­od in which the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games is al­so be­ing held–but the Or­der is il­le­gal, he claimed.

“So Min­is­ter Im­bert must not pay a sin­gle cent un­der this Or­der un­til he gets Par­lia­ment’s ap­proval,” Ho­sein added.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so did not re­spond to a What­sApp mes­sage on the mat­ter last night.

‘In­voic­es for Cari­com costs now com­ing in’

UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to say how much the Cari­com 45th meet­ing and 50th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions cost tax­pay­ers–how­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment sources could not give a cost yet.

They said in­voic­es will be com­ing in all week.

Ho­sein not­ed the events over the pe­ri­od for the Cari­com func­tions and that they would have costs: 5km and 10 km race, open­ing func­tion, flag-rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny, an­niver­sary con­cert, trib­utes func­tion, busi­ness, and me­dia cen­tres.

“Tell us how much it cost,” Ho­sein said, adding he had the cost break­down of the two-day Cari­com crime sym­po­sium which cost a to­tal of $3.4 m.

“For that, they spent $400,000 on food for two days, $225,000 for ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion, ban­ners, sig­nage, decor, and ve­hi­cles. So can you imag­ine the cost to tax­pay­ers for the last five days of Cari­com’s events—and none of it was sub­ject to pro­cure­ment law?!” Ho­sein added.

Gov­ern­ment sources who re­ferred queries on the three-month ex­emp­tion Or­der to Fi­nance, how­ev­er, point­ed out that African for­eign dig­ni­taries are ex­pect­ed for the Au­gust 1 Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions. (GA)