Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/ Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

In a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment in the CEPEP court case, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Kei­th Ed­dy has claimed he was pres­sured by for­mer Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi to ap­prove the mass re­new­al of con­trac­tor con­tracts—with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval—just days be­fore the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ed­dy, in a sworn af­fi­davit filed on Ju­ly 17, said such a move was un­prece­dent­ed dur­ing his nine-year tenure at the state-owned com­pa­ny. He is al­so chal­leng­ing an af­fi­davit by for­mer CEPEP chair­man Joel Ed­wards, who de­nied that Cab­i­net ap­proval was re­quired—or ob­tained—for the ex­ten­sion of 336 con­tracts. Ed­wards had pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that a board note ref­er­enc­ing Cab­i­net ap­proval was in­ac­cu­rate. He claimed he had or­dered a re­vised ver­sion of the note but could not lo­cate a copy in his records.

Ed­dy has dis­put­ed that claim, ac­cus­ing Ed­wards of mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

In his af­fi­davit, Ed­dy said the pro­posed con­tract ex­ten­sions would have cost the state an es­ti­mat­ed $1.4 bil­lion, and, giv­en the scale of the ex­pen­di­ture, pri­or Cab­i­net ap­proval was nec­es­sary—par­tic­u­lar­ly since the con­tracts were to be ex­tend­ed for up to three years, not just one.

He said his cau­tion was in­flu­enced by a May 2024 ac­cu­sa­tion that CEPEP had en­gaged in un­jus­ti­fied and un­con­trolled spend­ing with­out prop­er con­sent. Ac­cord­ing to Ed­dy, the Cen­tral Au­dit Com­mit­tee of the Min­istry of Fi­nance had al­leged­ly un­cov­ered and re­port­ed “ma­jor dis­crep­an­cies.” Ed­dy said he in­formed Ed­wards that he would not pro­ceed with a blan­ket ex­ten­sion of con­tracts with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval. He al­so claimed he re­fused to en­gage with an in­di­vid­ual de­scribed as Al-Rawi’s “right-hand man,” who had al­leged­ly sought to fa­cil­i­tate the process.

“I felt as if I was be­ing pres­sured in­to ex­tend­ing the con­tracts with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval, de­spite my ex­pressed view that this was nec­es­sary,” Ed­dy said.

“Once Cab­i­net ap­proval was grant­ed, I would have had no dif­fi­cul­ty in im­ple­ment­ing the de­ci­sion.” He ar­gued that since CEPEP is ful­ly state-owned, com­mit­ting $1.4 bil­lion with­out prop­er au­tho­ri­sa­tion would have been un­eth­i­cal, if not il­le­gal.

“It would ob­vi­ous­ly be un­rea­son­able for such a trans­ac­tion to pro­ceed with­out the gov­ern­ment hav­ing any knowl­edge of it, be­cause of the im­pli­ca­tions for the na­tion­al bud­get,” he stat­ed.

Ed­dy fur­ther claimed that in the run-up to the gen­er­al elec­tion, he came un­der “in­tense pres­sure” from Al-Rawi and oth­ers to add new con­trac­tors and as­sist cer­tain com­pa­nies.

He said he re­peat­ed­ly asked for doc­u­men­ta­tion or proof that Cab­i­net or the Min­istry of Fi­nance had ap­proved such changes, as he did not wish to be­come a “fall guy.” Ac­cord­ing to Ed­dy, in April, the month of the gen­er­al elec­tion, Al-Rawi called him mul­ti­ple times de­mand­ing that new con­trac­tors be added to the CEPEP pro­gramme.

“I was ex­treme­ly con­cerned about his ag­gres­sive and de­mand­ing na­ture be­cause I was be­ing asked to add these con­trac­tors with­out any cor­re­spond­ing in­crease in fund­ing—far less ap­proval from the Min­istry of Fi­nance,” he said. Ed­dy al­leged that when­ev­er he re­quest­ed Al-Rawi put the in­struc­tions in writ­ing, the min­is­ter “would get an­gry and nev­er did so.”

Ed­dy at­tached a screen­shot of a What­sApp con­ver­sa­tion al­leged­ly be­tween him­self and Ed­wards on April 3, in which Ed­wards wrote: “Min­is­ter tell me yuh giv­ing him trou­ble.” Ed­dy re­spond­ed: “He wants to put in new con­trac­tors with­out ap­proval. He said that he spoke to the fi­nance min­is­ter. And it was ap­proved but no ev­i­dence was pro­vid­ed.”

To that, Ed­wards al­leged­ly replied: “He may not be telling the truth. Be­ing diplo­mat­ic.”

Ed­dy replied, “I know he is not telling the truth.”

Ed­dy al­so ad­dressed the claim that Cab­i­net ap­proval had been grant­ed for the con­tract ex­ten­sions. He said he was in­formed by Ed­wards that ap­proval had been re­ceived.

“I ques­tioned him about the source of this im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion, and he in­di­cat­ed that CEPEP’s line min­is­ter, Mr Faris Al-Rawi, had ad­vised him that Cab­i­net had con­sid­ered the mat­ter and grant­ed the nec­es­sary ap­proval,” Ed­dy said.

Based on that as­sur­ance, Ed­dy said he in­struct­ed the Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary to pre­pare a board note. Ac­cord­ing to him, Ed­wards in­sist­ed that the note re­flect that Cab­i­net had al­ready ap­proved the con­tract ex­ten­sions and that the board was sim­ply rat­i­fy­ing and im­ple­ment­ing the de­ci­sion.

The note was pre­pared and cir­cu­lat­ed via email on April 23 at 3.35 pm.

Ed­dy stat­ed: “At no point was I ever in­formed by Mr Ed­wards or any­one else that the board note con­tained any er­ror. I was nev­er giv­en any di­rec­tive to pre­pare or cir­cu­late a re­vised note.”

He ref­er­enced a What­sApp mes­sage sent by Ed­wards ear­li­er that day at 1.22 pm to a group chat with CEPEP di­rec­tors, stat­ing: “Good Af­ter­noon every­one, I ne­glect­ed to men­tion at the board meet­ing that pur­suant to Cab­i­net ap­proval, we are ex­tend­ing con­tracts that would have end­ed in 2025 and 2026 for a fur­ther pe­ri­od of three years. Mr Ed­dy is do­ing a note for cir­cu­la­tion.” Ed­dy said Ed­wards nev­er in­formed the board that Cab­i­net had not in fact ap­proved the ex­ten­sions or that the board note was in­ac­cu­rate.

He de­scribed Ed­wards’ cur­rent claims as “a com­plete con­coc­tion and fab­ri­ca­tion” aimed at di­vert­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the false rep­re­sen­ta­tion about Cab­i­net ap­proval.

Giv­en the se­ri­ous­ness of the mat­ter, Ed­dy said he in­tends to re­fer it to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I have ab­solute­ly noth­ing to hide,” he said.

At­tempts by Guardian Me­dia to reach Faris Al-Rawi for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.

The al­le­ga­tions form part of a High Court mat­ter in­volv­ing East­man En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed and CEPEP. The law­suit, brought by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) on be­half of the Laven­tille-based con­trac­tor, stems from the ter­mi­na­tion of East­man’s con­tract—along with more than 300 oth­er CEPEP con­trac­tors—by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

CEPEP, rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, is seek­ing to have the law­suit struck out.