Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen has ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of com­plain­ing about the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­grammes be­cause they are no longer ben­e­fit­ing from state pro­grammes.

She al­so re­ject­ed the Op­po­si­tion’s claims that the ter­mi­na­tion of more than 4,000 em­ploy­ees from the Na­tion­al Re­for­esta­tion and Wa­ter­shed Pro­gramme has al­leged­ly led to a de­cline in the abil­i­ty of some ar­eas to re­spond to bush­fires.

Ac­cord­ing to Ameen, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice has in­di­cat­ed that the num­ber of fires be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced at this time of the year is not out of the or­di­nary.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, she ac­cused the PNM of per­pet­u­at­ing a ‘gimme’ cul­ture that, she claimed, of­ten fed crim­i­nal­i­ty and nepo­tism.

“What I have ob­served with the PNM is that a lot of them are com­plain­ing about pro­grammes be­cause they were con­trac­tors. So when you look at CEPEP, Re­for­esta­tion, even URP. A lot of PNM of­fi­cials, even coun­cil­lors, par­ty group mem­bers, MP’s rel­a­tives, held con­tracts. Who was mak­ing the mon­ey? The con­trac­tors were mak­ing the bulk of the mon­ey and the peo­ple were mak­ing min­i­mum wage.

“What we have been do­ing now is putting sus­tain­able pro­grammes in place where peo­ple get a mean­ing­ful, de­cent salary by cut­ting out the mid­dle­man. We have al­so cut out the crim­i­nals. The PNM gave con­tracts to a lot of crim­i­nals, and that was feed­ing crim­i­nal­i­ty,” she said.

Ameen added, “The min­is­ters’ fam­i­lies are list­ed in the re­for­esta­tion, who have con­tracts, coun­cil­lors as well. Broth­ers and sis­ters of coun­cil­lors and PNM of­fi­cials, who had con­tracts, that has to stop…We have a num­ber of fraud sit­u­a­tions, where peo­ple who were liv­ing abroad were be­ing paid, and they were be­ing paid to su­per­vise projects. So they have to sign off on projects be­fore they are paid. So that just goes to tell you, when you have the poor qual­i­ty projects out there on the road, it is be­cause these su­per­vi­sors were ghosts.

“And we have a num­ber of oth­er in­stances that we com­piled and we did sub­mit to the po­lice. But we have, be­cause of the vol­ume, we have de­cid­ed that we are go­ing to do foren­sic au­dits in­to the URP, as well as the rur­al de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny, be­cause both those places, we have seen some re­al­ly ques­tion­able prac­tices, es­pe­cial­ly where pro­cure­ment is con­cerned, where they were break­ing up con­tracts so that it would be be­low a cer­tain amount so that they could get away with not con­form­ing to the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions. We are see­ing the same peo­ple over and over get­ting con­tracts,” she said.

Ameen promised to keep the me­dia up­dat­ed as foren­sic au­dits in­to the pro­grammes con­tin­ue.

She spoke to Guardian Me­dia while at­tend­ing the an­nu­al Cara­po Unit­ed Sports Club’s East­er Day Cel­e­bra­tions yes­ter­day with Sen­a­tor Do­minic Smith.

Ac­cord­ing to or­gan­is­er Dar­win John, al­so known as Ab­dul Ha­keem, the Cara­po Unit­ed Sports Club An­nu­al East­er Day cel­e­bra­tions had not tak­en place for five years, but the com­mit­tee was de­ter­mined to bring it back de­spite fund­ing chal­lenges.

“We de­cid­ed to in­vite all the chil­dren to give them some­thing, not just Mus­lims, but all the chil­dren. We, as Mus­lims in this com­mu­ni­ty, are al­ways in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty af­fairs and to get things done for the com­mu­ni­ty. I am the vice chair­man of the vil­lage coun­cil. We try our best to up­lift the com­mu­ni­ty. Every­thing you see here is pos­si­ble be­cause of spon­sors - busi­ness­es in the com­mu­ni­ty and from Ari­ma,” he said.

The event was at­tend­ed by dozens of chil­dren from the com­mu­ni­ty who were treat­ed to free meals and games.