Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert has said cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that he did not ap­prove spe­cial li­cens­es last month for the MV Ocean Pel­i­can or its own­er Adri­an Scoon.

He said, how­ev­er, he said the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion is­sued the li­cens­es with­out his ap­proval.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Im­bert said he had tak­en note of state­ments made by mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion re­gard­ing the al­leged ap­proval by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance of spe­cial li­cences for the plea­sure craft.

An event aboard the ves­sel on Box­ing Day in­volv­ing over 100 peo­ple was shut down by po­lice cit­ing Pub­lic Health reg­u­la­tions. The mat­ter is now be­fore the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for a de­ter­mi­na­tion on whether the reg­u­la­tions were breached, al­though Scoon has claimed that he got per­mis­sion to op­er­ate the ves­sel as a safe zone.

Im­bert’s state­ment said, “For the record, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance did NOT ap­prove the spe­cial li­cences is­sued to the M.V. Ocean Pel­i­can and/or Adri­an Scoon that are cur­rent­ly cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia. To the con­trary, be­ing aware of the cur­rent pro­hi­bi­tion on par­ty boats, when asked to ap­prove the spe­cial li­cences last month, on No­vem­ber 5, 2021, the Min­is­ter queried the per­mis­si­bil­i­ty of the re­quest in the con­text of the cur­rent Covid-19 Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.”

His state­ment said that up­on con­sid­er­a­tion of the Min­is­ter’s query, the re­quest to the Min­is­ter to ap­prove the li­cences was with­drawn.

“As a con­se­quence, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance did not ap­prove the li­cences, which is an ex­press re­quire­ment of Sec­tion 45(1)(c) of the Liquor Li­cences Act Chap. 84.10. How­ev­er, for yet un­re­solved rea­sons, de­spite clear writ­ten in­struc­tions to the con­trary on De­cem­ber 3, 2021, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion is­sued the said li­cences, with­out the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter.”

Im­bert said in the state­ment that these li­cences have since been deemed by the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion to be null and void as no di­rec­tions for the is­suance of same were giv­en by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

At­tached are copies of rel­e­vant sup­port­ing doc­u­ments. The ir­reg­u­lar and unau­tho­rised is­suance of these spe­cial li­cences is now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

UNC al­leges retroac­tive

li­cens­es giv­en to Scoon

Pegged as a wrap-up of the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ures over the last days of 2021, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ fi­nal me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day in­stead un­cov­ered new de­tails on the par­ty boat turned restau­rant, the rental prop­er­ties owned by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, the qui­et pur­chase of a pri­vate com­pa­ny by a known friend of the Prime Min­is­ter and the vac­cine re­quire­ment be­ing placed on pub­lic ser­vants.

Sen­a­tor Wade Mark brought doc­u­ments claim­ing to show that the par­ty boat own­er, Adri­an Scoon, son of Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, ap­plied for a li­cense to op­er­ate his ves­sel as a restau­rant in ear­ly De­cem­ber and it was grant­ed it retroac­tive­ly.

Mark called for Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to in­ves­ti­gate how that came to be.

“There is one law for the PNM and their fam­i­ly, friends and fi­nanciers and there is an­oth­er law for all of the rest of T&T,” Mark said.

That is why each one, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­is­ter of Health, all are run­ning away from tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the fi­as­co that has tak­en place on the MV Ocean Pel­i­can,” Mark said.

“No one wants to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty but we have the ev­i­dence here to bring to your at­ten­tion,” Mark said.

“Could you imag­ine that some­body ap­plies to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance in De­cem­ber of this year to get a spe­cial liquor li­cense, un­der the Cus­toms Act,” he said.

He al­so ac­cused the AG of try­ing to “play games” with the peo­ple by danc­ing around the is­sue.

“I think that the time has come for the po­lice to in­ter­vene,” Mark said.

Mark al­so not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment’s rental con­tracts with Al-Rawi are up next year and called on the State to not re­new them.

With re­gards to the vac­cine man­date and re­quire­ment by the Gov­ern­ment, the UNC is sid­ing with the trade union stance that vac­cines should not be made manda­to­ry but should in­stead be left to per­son­al choice.

­—With re­port­ing by Renu­ka Singh