Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has re­vealed that the State has so far spent $11.6 mil­lion on the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­pan­sion project.

As the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter’s bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion came un­der scruti­ny dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day (con­sid­er­a­tion of sup­ple­ments/vari­a­tions of ap­pro­pri­a­tion aris­ing from the 2024 Bud­get), Min­is­ter Young was asked to pro­vide an up­date on Com­mis­sions of En­quiry.

He said in re­la­tion to the high­way to Point Fortin, there has been an ex­ten­sion of the terms of that en­quiry to look in­to the land ac­qui­si­tion be­tween 2010 to 2015.

He was then asked by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to say how much has been spent on that en­quiry to date.

“So far, the tax­pay­ers ex­pect­ed $3,196,000 in fees and then oth­er ex­pens­es, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8 mil­lion dol­lars, so a to­tal so far of fees and oth­er ex­pens­es of 11.6 mil­lion dol­lars,” Young said.

How­ev­er, in a me­dia state­ment a short while af­ter the in­for­ma­tion was re­leased, Dr Mooni­lal re­ferred to it as the “Still­born CoE.”

He said the stun­ning rev­e­la­tion yes­ter­day by Min­is­ter Young that the en­quiry cost tax­pay­ers $11 mil­lion with­out hold­ing a sin­gle meet­ing “is an­oth­er ex­am­ple of gross wastage by the failed Row­ley regime.

“Is this a case of ‘ghost meet­ings?’ Eleven mil­lion dol­lars is a lot for tea and sand­wich­es! This is mad­ness, un­ac­cept­able and in­tol­er­a­ble when hos­pi­tals go with­out crit­i­cal med­ica­tions and equip­ment,” Mooni­lal said.

The Oropouche East MP said the Gov­ern­ment must pro­vide a com­plete break­down of spend­ing on goods and ser­vices for this com­mis­sion that has seen one scan­dal af­ter an­oth­er.

He said mem­bers have changed, time­lines have changed and the terms of en­quiry have changed.

“Fail­ing that, there should be an in­de­pen­dent en­quiry in­to the still­born COI that has set­back hard-pressed tax­pay­ers such a whop­ping sum with­out lift­ing a fin­ger,” he said.

The Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in 2019, as it said more than half a bil­lion dol­lars was al­leged­ly spent on land ac­qui­si­tion for the high­way ex­ten­sion project un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship.

The en­quiry is be­ing chaired by re­tired Jus­tice Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour.