Op­po­si­tion leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, yes­ter­day called on the Gov­ern­ment to amend the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act to en­sure that the sale of Cli­co, the Mag­dale­na Grand ho­tel in To­ba­go and the Petrotrin re­fin­ery in Pointe-a-Pierre falls un­der the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was speak­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tions yes­ter­day, as she de­liv­ered the of­fi­cial Op­po­si­tion re­sponse to Mon­day's read­ing of the 2025 bud­get by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert.

She said she learnt from a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view done by Guardian Me­dia last month that the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions do not cov­er the sale of re­al prop­er­ty

"We need to move swift­ly and rapid­ly to bring pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion to deal with the dis­pos­al of prop­er­ty as it re­lates to Cli­co, as it re­lates to Mag­dale­na and as it re­lates to the re­fin­ery. And then and on­ly then should the Gov­ern­ment pro­ceed to di­vest these com­pa­nies," said Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

De­scrib­ing Cli­co, Mag­dale­na and the re­fin­ery as "huge as­sets," she said if the as­sets are not brought un­der the purview of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, the Op­po­si­tion would be very clear that the Gov­ern­ment wants to sell the three com­paies to its friends, fam­i­lies and fi­nanciers.

The po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress al­so said Im­bert has ques­tions to an­swer con­cern­ing the Cli­co as­sets that were used to sup­port the is­sue by the whol­ly State-owned Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund (NIF) of bonds worth $4 bil­lion. A ma­jor­i­ty of the $7.9 bil­lion in as­sets used to back the bonds came from as­sets ac­quired from Cli­co and its sis­ter com­pa­ny, Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who served as prime min­is­ter of T&T be­tween 2010 and 2015, asked, "What was the rev­enue earned by the Cli­co group, in­clud­ing the as­sets tied up in the NIF? Be­cause the rev­enue from those NIF-based as­sets is now be­ing used to pay div­i­dends to pri­vate in­vestors and cor­po­ra­tions in­stead of to re­pay the tax­pay­ers.

"So, how much of that rev­enue from each com­pa­ny in the Cli­co group has been used to re­tire the debt over the past 15 years?

"What is the val­ue of CLI­CO's as­sets that have al­ready been sold off, in­clud­ing the Cli­co shares in Methanol Hold­ings?"

Pe­sad-Bisses­sar al­so not­ed that Cli­co dis­closed a $2.3 bil­lion prof­it fol­low­ing the au­dit of its 2023 fi­nan­cial state­ments.

"Is this why the gov­ern­ment is anx­ious to sell off the com­pa­ny to their fi­nanciers on the eve of a gen­er­al elec­tion? Why now? I call on the Min­is­ter to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive re­port on Cli­co pub­licly. No more se­crets."