Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Re­sign now?

That’s Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s or­der to state board mem­bers who haven’t yet re­signed.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Red House, Port-of-Spain, she al­so warned that every con­tract state boards have en­tered in­to will be sent to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau to in­ves­ti­gate.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “I want to tell all boards who are re­fus­ing to re­sign and the CEOs and man­age­ment of state en­ter­pris­es who are busy sign­ing off con­tracts and hir­ing friends and fam­i­ly, I tell them every con­tract they’ve en­tered in­to will be sent straight to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau so every per­son and every com­pa­ny in­volved will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“This is the most shame­less type of be­hav­iour I’ve ever seen ex­hib­it­ed dur­ing a change of gov­ern­ment. It is overt, it is bold-faced and try­ing to eat-ah-food down to the wire and af­ter you’ve passed the fin­ish line - it doesn’t work like that.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that Gov­ern­ment has plans to deal with board mem­bers who are re­fus­ing to step down.

“Of course, we have plans ... which I will not share with you to­day. We’re call­ing up­on them to do the right thing and should they fail so to do, we’ll do the right thing. They may be reap­point­ed. But the prin­ci­ple is that when the gov­ern­ment changes, you go. If you had done well ... some could be reap­point­ed. It’s not like you’re go­ing to fire every­body ... that’s not my in­ten­tion to fire every­body. We need every­one.”

She added, “So - yes, we have a plan. So far, many have com­plied, by the way. Ini­tial­ly, just a few had done it and oth­ers were threat­en­ing they ‘not go­ing any­where’ ... what­ev­er. I think good sense is pre­vail­ing. And for the few who are hold­ing on by their fin­ger­nails and toe­nails - we have a plan.”

She de­clined say which state boards are “hold­ing on by their fin­ger­nails.”

“Let’s give them a fur­ther chance af­ter my warn­ing to­day,” she said.

On an­oth­er is­sue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing and will be of­fer­ing an amnesty to al­low state en­ter­pris­es and small com­pa­nies to com­ply with their le­gal re­quire­ments re­gard­ing the Com­pa­nies’ Reg­istry.

“Some com­pa­nies haven’t filed state­ments for mul­ti­ple years - CEPEP (for a five-year pe­ri­od, yet it re­ceived half a bil­lion dol­lars), Caribbean Air­lines hasn’t filed since 2015. So, the new board will soon call on the CEO to ac­count.”

She added, “I’m giv­ing the man­age­ment of all state en­ter­pris­es fair warn­ing that they have to get their hous­es in or­der and have their state­ments of ac­counts up­dat­ed and filed when due.”

“Many pri­vate­ly reg­is­tered com­pa­nies have been struck off the reg­istry be­cause they have not filed. State en­ter­pris­es take it for grant­ed that no mat­ter what they do or do not, Gov­ern­ment will keep bail­ing them out be­cause of the fear of po­lit­i­cal fall­out - that can­not con­tin­ue....”

Say­ing that some con­tin­ue to ig­nore the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­vid­ing prop­er ac­counts, Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned, “They may well end up not re­ceiv­ing as­sis­tance from Gov­ern­ment in the fu­ture.”

She said prop­er plan­ning can­not be tak­en by any or­gan­i­sa­tion if they didn’t have up-to-date ac­counts year­ly.

She said mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions are al­so guilty of not pro­vid­ing prop­er fi­nan­cial state­ments for au­dit­ing.

“Many are cul­prits - UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions and PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions. The biggest amongst them are Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro - 15 years; Diego Mar­tin - 15 years, Tu­na­puna - 12 years, Point Fortin -10 years.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said many com­pa­nies have been struck off the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry and the amnesty would be done to al­low them time to com­ply.