Renu­ka Singh

While Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark yes­ter­day ap­plaud­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s bid to be trans­par­ent in the Ocean Pel­i­can boat par­ty fi­as­co, Mark said he has not ab­solved him­self from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“My view, there ap­pears to be a lot of con­flicts, bac­cha­nal, con­fu­sion in the ranks of the PNM,” Mark said yes­ter­day.

On Fri­day Mark made it pub­lic that busi­ness­man Adri­an Scoon, who is the son of Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, was able to get a spe­cial liquor li­cense ap­proved by the Min­istry of Fi­nance for his Box­ing Day plea­sure craft event.

Hours af­ter Mark made it pub­lic, Im­bert is­sued a me­dia re­call­ing the li­cense. Yes­ter­day Im­bert said that the li­cense was not ap­proved by his Min­istry.

“The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance must have known that that was the son of Paula Gopee-Scoon, who is a se­nior mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and he must have known that Adri­an Scoon wrote to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al seek­ing ad­vice and then he writes to the Min­is­ter of Health say­ing he had ad­vice from the AG,” Mark said.

“So the Min­is­ter was on­ly aware of what hap­pened af­ter I raised the is­sue?” Mark asked yes­ter­day in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Im­bert pro­vid­ed three doc­u­ments on Fri­day one of which was a memo from the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Fi­nance di­rect­ed to the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms grant­i­ng the spe­cial li­cense on De­cem­ber 3 and said that when it came be­fore him he did not ap­prove it.

“Now he did not say he is deny­ing, he is de­fer­ring,” Mark said.

“Lo and be­hold, ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter and the cor­re­spon­dences that he re­leased to the pub­lic, the act­ing Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise, on the 30 of De­cem­ber, tells you that the li­cense, the spe­cial restau­rant li­cense was is­sued to Adri­an Scoon and his com­pa­ny Ocean Sweet­ness Ltd and his ves­sel Ocean Pel­i­can on 23 De­cem­ber,” Mark said.

“The li­cense was il­le­gal ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. The Min­is­ter has got­ten him­self caught up in a catch 22 sit­u­a­tion. What is hap­pen­ing is that (Health Min­is­ter) Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has giv­en the all-clear to Adri­an Scoon to go ahead and have a float­ing restau­rant,” Mark said.

Mark said that the UNC was con­cerned with the pub­lic in­ter­est.

“What this is telling T&T is that the PNM is look­ing to blame some­body else,” he said.

Mark said this is a case where “every­one is kick­ing the can down the road and no one is tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty”.

“Im­bert has washed his hands clean,” he said.

Scoon yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that he had no com­ment at this time and that his lawyer was prep­ping a re­sponse to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.