Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan is wash­ing his hands off the con­tro­ver­sial Pe­nal hos­pi­tal con­tract, set to be giv­en to Cana­di­an con­glom­er­ate SNC-Lavalin, say­ing he had noth­ing to do with the choice of con­trac­tor or fi­nan­cial ne­go­ti­a­tions.He said the Prime Min­is­ter want­ed a spe­cial­ist hos­pi­tal in Pe­nal and it was his man­date to de­liv­er that to her con­stituents.In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Khan added: "I don't know any­thing about that. All I know about it is that it is in the hands of Ude­cott (Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T) and SWRHA (South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty)."He could not say on what ba­sis SNC-Lavalin was cho­sen. Its sub­sidiary com­pa­ny, SNC-Lavalin Inc, is un­der a ten-year ban from the World Bank.Asked whether he felt com­fort­able that SNC-Lavalin was get­ting the con­tract to build the hos­pi­tal, giv­en its track record and ques­tion­able cor­po­rate prac­tices, Khan said: "I have ab­solute­ly no com­ment on that."The Prime Min­is­ter wants a hos­pi­tal. I promised she would get a hos­pi­tal and that's where it ends with me."

The Pe­nal hos­pi­tal is be­ing built at Clarke Road, Pe­nal, in the con­stituen­cy of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­der a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ment with Cana­da.Asked how gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ments func­tioned, Khan said the Min­istry of Health would de­cide on a project and then go to Cab­i­net with a note which in­di­cat­ed whether the project would be built us­ing a com­mer­cial loan or a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ment.He said a rec­om­men­da­tion was then made on which spe­cial-pur­pose com­pa­ny (Ude­cott, Nipdec or Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T) was best suit­ed to over­see the project.He added: "The Min­istry of Fi­nance then de­cides if the coun­try can af­ford the project. Once the Cab­i­net agrees to the project, the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs ap­proach­es the coun­try to re­quest a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment loan with pref­er­en­tial in­ter­est rates."Their gov­ern­ment will then get in touch with our for­eign af­fairs (min­istry) and we will de­vel­op a frame­work agree­ment be­tween the two coun­tries."If the host gov­ern­ment ac­cepts then the project is ex­e­cut­ed."

He said Health Min­istry of­fi­cials had been re­view­ing the hos­pi­tal's user brief, which gave specifics of the lay­out and de­sign."When some­one is build­ing a hos­pi­tal we have to as­sess the de­sign in terms of how many rooms and spe­cial­i­ties will be present and what the lay­out will be. The ba­sic struc­ture of the hos­pi­tal is be­ing re­viewed," Khan said.He said a meet­ing was held last week to dis­cuss the lay­out and de­sign.Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal promised to pro­vide doc­u­men­ta­tion on the hos­pi­tal con­tract once the Cana­di­an au­thor­i­ties cleared the air on it.SNC-Lavalin's cor­po­rate rep­u­ta­tion went fur­ther down­hill af­ter for­mer CEO Pierre Duhaime and an­oth­er for­mer top ex­ec­u­tive, Ri­adh Ben Ais­sa, were ar­rest­ed on charges stem­ming from a con­tract for the mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar McGill Uni­ver­si­ty Health Cen­tre.