Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Cana­di­an-based en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion con­glom­er­ate SNC-Lavalin, whose for­mer boss Pierre Duhaime was ar­rest­ed for fraud and cor­rup­tion, has been giv­en the nod to build the state-of-the art Pe­nal hos­pi­tal and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre.The hos­pi­tal project is be­ing man­aged by spe­cial-pur­pose com­pa­ny Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), which falls un­der the port­fo­lio of Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.In re­sponse to a text mes­sage, Mooni­lal said he was un­aware that the Cana­di­an firm had been hired to build the hos­pi­tal.Asked who would be build­ing the hos­pi­tal, Mooni­lal re­spond­ed, "Ude­cott." Asked whether Ude­cott had sub­con­tract­ed the project to SNC-Lavalin, Mooni­lal wrote: "Ask Kurt Ram­lal (Ude­cott's CEO)."

Ram­lal, in re­sponse to an e-mail, con­firmed that con­struc­tion of the hos­pi­tal is be­ing fund­ed via a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment loan arrange­ment be­tween Cana­da and T&T."The gov­ern­ment of Cana­da has nom­i­nat­ed con­struc­tion firm SNC-Lavalin to de­sign and con­struct the hos­pi­tal and re­hab cen­tre. Pay­ment terms have not been fi­nalised, as tenets are still be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed," Ram­lal said. An­oth­er source at Ude­cott said the T&T Gov­ern­ment had no choice in the hir­ing of the con­trac­tor.Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er G�rard Lat­ulippe is out of the coun­try and was not avail­able for com­ment on why SNC-Lavalin was cho­sen to build the hos­pi­tal, de­spite a World Bank ban.How­ev­er, an of­fi­cial from the em­bassy said the T&T Guardian's queries had been re­ceived and a re­sponse would be is­sued in due course.A text mes­sage was al­so sent to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day but no re­sponse was forth­com­ing.

SNC-Lavalin'strou­bled track record

In April this year, the World Bank slapped a ten-year ban on SNC-Lavalin Inc, a sub­sidiary of SNC-Lavalin and its af­fil­i­ates, from bid­ding on projects fund­ed by the bank be­cause of a scan­dal over bribes.An ar­ti­cle in the on­line Huff­in­g­ton Post in May re­port­ed that a joint in­ves­ti­ga­tion by CBC News and Toron­to's Globe and Mail found a di­vi­sion of SNC-Lavalin had been us­ing a se­cret in­ter­nal ac­count­ing code for bribes on projects across Africa and Asia for years, ac­cord­ing to for­mer em­ploy­ees.Duhaime and an­oth­er for­mer top ex­ec­u­tive, Ri­adh Ben Ais­sa, are both fac­ing charges stem­ming from a con­tract in­volv­ing the build­ing of the McGill Uni­ver­si­ty Health Cen­tre (MUHC) in Cana­da.

Duhaime stepped down in March 2012 af­ter an in­de­pen­dent re­view showed he signed off on Can$56 mil­lion in pay­ments to undis­closed agents.Ben Ais­sa was ar­rest­ed in April 2012 in Switzer­land and is al­so fac­ing charges re­lat­ing to al­leged cor­rup­tion, fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing in North Africa.SNC-Lavalin signed a deal with Sier­ra As­set Man­age­ments of the Ba­hamas to help se­cure the lu­cra­tive MUHC su­per­hos­pi­tal con­tract in 2009. Sier­ra, which has al­leged ties to Arthur Porter, was paid Can$22.5 mil­lion in con­sult­ing fees from SNC over the years. Porter, from Sier­ra Leone, lives in the Ba­hamas.Po­lice al­lege the con­sult­ing fees were ac­tu­al­ly kick­backs.

SNC-Lavalin'slinks to T&T

In May this year, for­mer CEO of the MUHC Dr Arthur Porter and his wife were ar­rest­ed en route to T&T.They were held in Pana­ma in con­nec­tion with an al­leged Can$22.5 mil­lion kick­back in the cen­tre's con­struc­tion and were charged with of­fences in­clud­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit a crime.An­ti-cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tors say em­ploy­ees at the hos­pi­tal net­work–as well as em­ploy­ees of en­gi­neer­ing firm SNC-Lavalin–com­mit­ted fraud and forgery aris­ing from the $1.3 bil­lion MUHC su­per­hos­pi­tal con­tract.Af­ter Porter's ar­rest, T&T and Pana­ma were la­belled a "mon­ey-laun­der­ing haven" by Cana­di­an ex­perts who said Porter had no busi­ness con­nec­tions in T&T.

Checks by the T&T Guardian showed SNC-Lavalin has been pre­vi­ous­ly in­volved in projects at state-owned Petrotrin. On its Web site, SNC-Lavalin said it was re­spon­si­ble for es­tab­lish­ing a new ul­tra low sul­phur diesel (ULSD) fa­cil­i­ty that forms a key part of Petrotrin's clean fu­els up­grade pro­gramme. The unit was de­signed to process 40,000 bar­rels per of diesel a day to meet strin­gent North Amer­i­can fu­el spec­i­fi­ca­tions. SNC-Lavalin list­ed its scope of work as "man­age­ment of en­gi­neer­ing, pro­cure­ment, con­struc­tion, health and safe­ty, qual­i­ty and com­mis­sion­ing as­pects of the project."