Yvonne Webb

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion PNM of at­tempt­ing to tor­pe­do the now con­tentious con­struc­tion of the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar hos­pi­tal at Clarke Road, Pe­nal. How­ev­er, she as­sured the hos­pi­tal would be built.

The hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion has be­come mired in con­tro­ver­sy af­ter a T&T Guardian re­port not­ed the T&T Gov­ern­ment had signed a con­tract with trou­bled Cana­di­an firm SNC-Lavalin to de­sign and con­struct the build­ing, al­though the World Bank had banned the com­pa­ny from bid­ding on projects fund­ed by the bank for the next ten years, cit­ing com­pa­ny mis­con­duct in Bangladesh and Cam­bo­dia.

The rec­om­men­da­tion for SNC-Lavalin's in­volve­ment in the $800 mil­lion fa­cil­i­ty came from the Cana­di­an Com­mer­cial Cor­po­ra­tion (CCC).In the Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert called on Gov­ern­ment to stop the project, say­ing there are too many unan­swered ques­tions with the con­trac­tor.He ques­tioned T&T's High Com­mis­sion­er to Cana­da Phillip Buxo's in­volve­ment in the se­lec­tion process.

Buxo, how­ev­er, has de­nied he had any in­flu­ence in dis­cus­sions over SNC-Lavalin work­ing in T&T, even though he was a di­rec­tor at the com­pa­ny be­fore he took up his diplo­mat­ic post.Speak­ing at the UNC Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment was as­sist­ing her Gov­ern­ment with the project.She ac­cused the PNM of "fight­ing to shut down all of our de­vel­op­ment projects.

"And now in their lat­est con­spir­a­cy against the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try, they are look­ing for is­sues with the hos­pi­tals we are build­ing in Cou­va and Pe­nal."She said Gov­ern­ment's ob­jec­tive was mere­ly to put the right fa­cil­i­ties and in­fra­struc­ture in ar­eas where they were most need­ed, for max­i­mum ben­e­fit by all cit­i­zens.She said an­oth­er project, the Cou­va hos­pi­tal, would serve the needs of neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Bal­main, Preysal and Ch­agua­nas West .

She added: "The easy ac­cess to the Solomon Ho­choy High­way makes it a very con­ve­nient lo­ca­tion but the PNM does not want us to build that hos­pi­tal and they are com­ing up with all man­ner of pro­pa­gan­da to try to stall the con­struc­tion."But I tell you tonight, the Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment has giv­en us a com­mit­ment to build that hos­pi­tal and we will build it for you.

"And we will build your hos­pi­tal in Pe­nal. The Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment is help­ing us with that project, but again, the Op­po­si­tion is try­ing to find any ex­cuse to tor­pe­do it. In typ­i­cal fash­ion, they are spread­ing all man­ner of mis­in­for­ma­tion." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was a need for a hos­pi­tal in Pe­nal which was one of the more pop­u­lous re­gions in the coun­try.

She added: "The PNM ne­glect left tens of thou­sands of peo­ple with­out any ac­cess to prop­er health­care. When a child gets sick or some­one gets a heart at­tack, the clos­est hos­pi­tal is San Fer­nan­do or Point Fortin. They die be­fore get­ting help."That is why we have to build our Pe­nal hos­pi­tal so we can at­tend to your health­care needs where you live."

The Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, G�rard Lat­ulippe, re­vealed on Mon­day that the Cana­di­an Com­mer­cial Cor­po­ra­tion was still do­ing a due dili­gence re­view on SNC-Lavalin, fol­low­ing which it would de­cide whether SNC-Lavalin would build the hos­pi­tal.