KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris is urg­ing any­one with knowl­edge of fi­nan­cial wrong­do­ing at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC) to speak up, fol­low­ing se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions made by Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen.

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day, Par­ris said if the Min­is­ter has cred­i­ble de­tails that could as­sist the on­go­ing probe in­to the $90,000 in pub­lic funds that went miss­ing, they should be hand­ed over to the au­thor­i­ties.

“If there is more in­for­ma­tion to­wards this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or if there are any im­pro­pri­eties, I have stat­ed pre­vi­ous­ly that I want whomev­er to bring it to the fore­front be­cause it is very un­com­fort­able be­ing the head of the po­lit­i­cal arm—PNM or UNC—of any or­gan­i­sa­tion that is cor­rupt,” he said.

In Ca­paro on Tues­day, Ameen said the miss­ing $90,000 was like­ly “on­ly the tip of the ice­berg.” She said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion had al­ready raised con­cerns about broad­er fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment and hint­ed that ad­di­tion­al funds might be un­ac­count­ed for.

“It ap­pears that that is on­ly the tip of the ice­berg, and we will have more in­ves­ti­ga­tions, and there are per­sons who, al­so past gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, may be help­ful in those in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” Ameen said.

The miss­ing mon­ey—com­pris­ing tax­es and fees col­lect­ed be­tween April 30 and May 16—had been placed in sealed Re­pub­lic Bank en­velopes and se­cured in a cab­i­net. On May 19 an act­ing ac­coun­tant dis­cov­ered the cab­i­net had been ac­cessed with a key and the cash was gone.

Sev­er­al SFCC staff mem­bers had ac­cess to the cab­i­net but none were au­tho­rised to re­move the funds. The SFCC and the San Fer­nan­do Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID) are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter.

Par­ris said any em­ploy­ee in­volved in cor­rup­tion must be held ac­count­able and he re­mind­ed of­fice hold­ers of their du­ty to re­spon­si­bly man­age state re­sources.

“It is not a joke. You are sup­posed to be able to ac­count for every cent, and I con­tin­ue to make that clear to all mem­bers of coun­cil—and es­pe­cial­ly the ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he said.

He de­clined to ad­dress Ameen’s sug­ges­tion that a for­mer min­is­ter could be linked to the mat­ter.

“I try not to have opin­ions on things that I do not have any in­for­ma­tion on. What I have stat­ed pre­vi­ous­ly is ex­act­ly how I feel.”

For­mer Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi did not re­spond to calls for com­ment yes­ter­day.