For­mer prime min­is­ter, now Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, says pay­ments made to her by her for­mer spe­cial ad­vi­sor Bar­ry Padarath were for of­fi­cial busi­ness trans­act­ed dur­ing an of­fi­cial trip in 2014. Guardian Me­dia sent the fol­low­ing ques­tions re­gard­ing the cheque pay­ments is­sued to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Fol­low­ing are the ques­tions and re­spons­es.

MB: Can you say what was the pay­ment of these monies for?

KPB: These monies were re­im­burse­ments to my per­son­al VISA cred­it card for ex­pens­es prop­er­ly in­curred on of­fi­cial trav­el out of the coun­try while I was Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The cheques were man­ag­er’s cheques and a to­tal of $135,800.00. On De­cem­ber 4, 2014, those cheques were de­posit­ed di­rect­ly as re­im­burse­ments to my per­son­al VISA cred­it card.

MB: Why was your spe­cial aide at that time pay­ing you mon­ey?

KPB: At the time Mr Padarath was an Ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. His re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clud­ed pro­to­col ser­vices to the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fi­cial over­seas del­e­ga­tions and al­so han­dling the lo­gis­ti­cal de­tails of these trips, in­clud­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion and in­ci­den­tal ex­pens­es.

Mr Padarath was is­sued with a gov­ern­ment-is­sued cred­it card with him as the sig­na­to­ry, for use on of­fi­cial over­seas trav­el to pay for ac­com­mo­da­tion and in­ci­den­tal ex­pens­es. He would be giv­en what is known as a “con­tin­gency” sum by the Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to cov­er those ex­pens­es. He would place that “con­tin­gency” sum in a spe­cial bank ac­count in his name at the First Cit­i­zens Bank, and es­tab­lished and used for that pur­pose on­ly for the sake of ac­count­abil­i­ty. He would have to ac­count to the Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter for every sin­gle ex­pense, and al­ways did so.

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od in ques­tion, on an of­fi­cial vis­it to North Amer­i­ca, the of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment-is­sued cred­it card was not work­ing. I, there­fore, had to use my per­son­al cred­it card to pay for ac­com­mo­da­tion and in­ci­den­tals. De­tails and proof of all of those ex­pens­es charged to my per­son­al cred­it card were pro­vid­ed to the Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Mr Padarath is­sued the Man­ag­er’s Cheques to me from his said ac­count, in­to which would have been paid the “con­tin­gency” sum for that over­seas trip paid to him by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. He ac­count­ed for the Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter for those cheques and pro­vid­ed all sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion.

The Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and Ac­counts De­part­ment in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter would be aware of and be in pos­ses­sion of these doc­u­ments and would have au­dit­ed and ap­proved these trans­ac­tions many years ago.

MB: And what did you do with that mon­ey?

KPB: The cheques in ques­tion were de­posit­ed di­rect­ly in­to my said per­son­al VISA cred­it card ac­count on De­cem­ber 4, 2014 as re­im­burse­ment for what I had to charge on that card for of­fi­cial ac­com­mo­da­tion and in­ci­den­tal ex­pens­es, since the of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment-is­sued cred­it card was not work­ing. All doc­u­men­ta­tion in that re­gard was pro­vid­ed to the Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter for the fi­nan­cial records.