Rishard Khan

Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh is call­ing on the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to in­ves­ti­gate the source of fund­ing be­ing utilised by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to re­con­struct the new head­quar­ters of Bal­isi­er House.

In­dars­ingh said the fron­trun­ner for po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM in its in­ter­nal elec­tions, Karen Nunez-Tesheira, told them the project “has cost some­where in the vicin­i­ty of $50 mil­lion.”

“We do not know if an­oth­er $50 mil­lion will be need­ed to com­plete Bal­isi­er House and we want to ask be­cause we want to know how many do­na­tions were giv­en for the con­struc­tion of Bal­isi­er House,” In­dars­ingh said.

How­ev­er, he said sources are in­form­ing the op­po­si­tion that more is afoot in fund­ing the project than just the do­na­tions. This is why he called on the high­est po­lice au­thor­i­ty to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to it.

“Based on what we are see­ing, and what we are be­ing told by in­sid­ers with­in the PNM, Bal­isi­er House should be cor­doned off with yel­low tape or cau­tion tape. It should be de­clared a crime scene. This morn­ing we call up­on the Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to de­clare Bal­isi­er House a crime scene, to cor­don it off with cau­tion tape, fol­low the mon­ey and launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to reach the Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob for com­ment but calls went unan­swered.

Com­ment­ing briefly on the com­ments, PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings dis­missed the in­sin­u­a­tion say­ing the par­ty has been rais­ing funds for al­most a decade to un­der­take the project.