SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of pros­ti­tut­ing CEPEP and us­ing the pro­gramme as a slush fund to ben­e­fit se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials.

Padarath made the al­le­ga­tions while speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tions at the Cou­va South Au­di­to­ri­um in Cam­den, Cou­va, on Sat­ur­day.

The Min­is­ter claimed that 360 CEPEP con­tracts were award­ed with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval ahead of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“Many of these con­tracts were not up for re­new­al and there­fore, the tim­ing of it brings in­to ques­tion the mo­tive, and it has to be that many of these con­tracts were giv­en out based on a per­son’s par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

“They, the PNM, were pros­ti­tut­ing CEPEP for po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age,” he as­sert­ed. “When you saw CEPEP work­ers go­ing to po­lit­i­cal ral­lies, when you saw CEPEP work­ers work­ing for PNM on elec­tion day, it was as a re­sult of the pros­ti­tu­tion of CEPEP as an en­ti­ty for po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age by the PNM, and I make no apolo­gies for say­ing that.”

Padarath al­so al­leged that the con­tract re­newals rep­re­sent­ed hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in ex­pen­di­ture car­ried out with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

“There is more to come in the mid-year re­view,” he said, re­fer­ring to the 2024–2025 bud­get.

“I have been speak­ing about the is­sue of the CEPEP head­quar­ters where, for three years, Mr (Faris) Al-Rawi and oth­ers at­tempt­ed to re­lo­cate CEPEP un­suc­cess­ful­ly—but on the backs of tax­pay­ers, where $3.5 mil­lion of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey was paid to the rel­a­tive of a se­nior for­mer PNM min­is­ter,” he stat­ed.

Padarath said he in­tends to name the al­leged ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the $3.5 mil­lion pay­out dur­ing the mid-year re­view. He point­ed out that for­mer PNM min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi, who had over­sight of CEPEP at the time, has yet to re­fute any of the claims which he and MP Sad­dam Ho­sein have made re­gard­ing the con­tract awards and prop­er­ty rental.

He added that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is cur­rent­ly re­view­ing the con­tract awards.

“We are seek­ing ad­vice, and that is why I am say­ing that Cab­i­net is re­view­ing the op­er­a­tions,” Padarath said.

He de­scribed CEPEP as a “run­away horse” ma­nip­u­lat­ed by for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters who, he claimed, di­rect­ed the com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions.

“There will be an au­dit of CEPEP and a re­view of its op­er­a­tions,” he said, stress­ing that CEPEP must not serve po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests.