RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi has re­vealed he re­ceived "live threats" dur­ing the Pi­ar­co Air­port civ­il mat­ter but de­spite the ob­sta­cles, he said he fear­less­ly pur­sued the case, which the Gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly lost.

Speak­ing at a PNM po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at the San Fer­nan­do City Hall on Thurs­day night, Al-Rawi said he did the case at the risk of his per­son­al safe­ty.

"With the help of Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, we de­vel­oped a pack­age of laws called Fol­low the Mon­ey and we found white-col­lar crime," Al-Rawi told the gath­er­ing.

Al-Rawi said in 2015, he met the Pi­ar­co Air­port mat­ter.

"Crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings be­gan in Mi­a­mi from 2005 to 2017. The civ­il mat­ter had start­ed and we got a judg­ment. In pros­e­cut­ing that, I was get­ting live threats made to me as to why I should stay out," he re­vealed.

He not­ed that when the UNC took of­fice in 2010, "the Pi­ar­co civ­il mat­ter went to bed."

"They couldn't get in­struc­tions from the then At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. Worse yet, five peo­ple gave wit­ness ev­i­dence, they plead­ed guilty and con­fessed to how they thief the peo­ple's mon­ey. Not a small thief you know. And this is not me say­ing so, the US Dis­trict At­tor­neys heard the ev­i­dence," Al-Rawi said.

He added: "Mil­lions of US dol­lars came in­to T&T. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was well aware the mat­ter was alive, ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings and she was well aware of the civ­il claim."

Al-Rawi said de­spite the in­tim­i­da­tion, he did his du­ty.

"For sev­en years as the AG, we fought on all bat­tle­fronts. Laws to pro­tect chil­dren, laws for a bet­ter econ­o­my; trans­paren­cy in ex­pen­di­ture; cannabis laws and laws for a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem."

He said the PNM de­liv­ered lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form af­ter 1.1 mil­lion sub­mis­sions and af­ter 33,000 in-per­son con­sul­tants.

Al-Rawi al­so said the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion was the best-per­form­ing coun­cil in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, not­ing that there are $256 mil­lion in projects in the pipeline right now. He not­ed that the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment law will be ap­plied, which means that con­trac­tors have to "up their game" as it re­lates to lo­cal con­tent. He re­vealed that San Fer­nan­do has al­ready seen over $1 bil­lion in de­vel­op­ment projects.

"We are re­claim­ing 3.8 hectares of land at the wa­ter­front where the jet­ty is, where the Cus­toms' new build­ing opened. We have a fish­ing de­pot, where we hav­ing a con­sul­ta­tion, that will cost $38 mil­lion, coastal pro­tec­tion on­go­ing is $67 mil­lion; La­dy Hailes widen­ing is $136 mil­lion, squat­ter re­lo­ca­tion is $43 mil­lion, and PTSC re­lo­ca­tion was $15 mil­lion," he said.

He al­so said the hous­ing at the PTSC site will cost $207 mil­lion, while the Plaza San Car­los project at King's Wharf will cost $61 mil­lion. The Skin­ner Park sta­di­um, he said, cost $160 mil­lion, the hos­pi­tal car park cost $140 mil­lion, while the WASA waste­water treat­ment plant will cost $654 mil­lion.

Al­so speak­ing at the meet­ing were San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning and Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell. Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young al­so at­tend­ed the meet­ing.