RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As it emerged yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment is now ow­ing $852 mil­lion to bank­rupt Brazil­ian firm OAS Con­struc­to­ra, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has called on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to in­ves­ti­gate who signed an ad­den­dum to the OAS con­tract al­low­ing the firm to walk away with the near $1 bil­lion.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing in Ari­ma last night, Dr Row­ley launched a scathing at­tack against Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing three days be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress lost the 2015 elec­tion, an ad­den­dum was added to OAS’s con­tract with the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Nid­co) which robbed the coun­try of mon­ey when the Brazil­ian firm be­came bank­rupt.

“The con­tract doc­u­ments had claus­es in it that pro­tect­ed the coun­try against bank­rupt­cy. There was one clause, 152E, which said if the con­trac­tor is in­sol­vent or goes bank­rupt, the bonds the con­trac­tor put up go to the State. But they (UNC) did some­thing to al­low the con­trac­tor to go away with the mon­ey,” Row­ley charged.

He said when the PNM won the elec­tions on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015 and got in­to of­fice, it went to the court in a bid to get the ad­den­dum de­clared null and void.

“We went to court and ar­gued that this be­hav­iour was not a rea­son­able ac­tion and what hap­pened was an at­tempt to de­fraud the State. It was agreed that we should get the bonds and that is how the high­way is be­ing built,” Dr Row­ley re­vealed.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that re­cent­ly, a rul­ing from the tri­bunal has now man­dat­ed Nid­co to pay OAS a to­tal of US$126 mil­lion (TT$852 mil­lion).

The Prime Min­is­ter said the con­trac­tor is now seek­ing ar­bi­tra­tion.

Blam­ing the UNC for chang­ing the con­tract to ben­e­fit the con­trac­tor rather than the coun­try, Row­ley said this should be a mat­ter for the po­lice.

“I want the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to go in­to Nid­co. I have in­struct­ed the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port to in­struct Nid­co to co­op­er­ate ful­ly with the po­lice so the coun­try can de­ter­mine un­der whose hand and di­rec­tion this trav­es­ty took place,” Row­ley stat­ed.

He added, “You could imag­ine what we could go with $852 mil­lion that be­longs to us that they gave away for love and af­fec­tion? The con­trac­tor is go­ing to ar­bi­tra­tion and we will on­ly know our fate when the ar­bi­tra­tion de­ci­sion comes in.”

He al­so point­ed to the si­lence of the UNC when OAS Con­struc­to­ra de­clared bank­rupt­cy on March 31, 2015.

“In March, the con­trac­tor goes bank­rupt and in April, May, June, Ju­ly Au­gust, the UNC did noth­ing to pro­tect the pub­lic mon­ey,” Row­ley said.

“Nid­co can­not de­fend it­self be­cause it has waived such rights be­cause of the terms of the ad­den­dum which was added on the 4th of Sep­tem­ber 2015. That was the last work­ing day that Kam­la and UNC were in gov­ern­ment. The UNC re­moved the clause and al­lowed the con­trac­tor to go away with $1 bil­lion,” he added.

The Prime Min­is­ter said while Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been ma­lign­ing his min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Faris Al-Rawi, Stu­art Young and now Fos­ter Cum­mings, she has not re­spond­ed to the in­jus­tice in­volv­ing OAS.

“If there was ever a case to be made for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice it’s the per­son who au­tho­rised the re­moval of that clause which is now cost­ing the coun­try $852 mil­lion,” Row­ley said.

He added, “I call on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice tonight to go in­to Nid­co and find out by what au­thor­i­ty and un­der whose au­thor­i­ty that clause was re­moved. I have been rais­ing this mat­ter for years and no­body at the UNC will ever re­spond. Yet they’re call­ing on peo­ple to march. Every day they have com­plaints. You know what we can do with $852 mil­lion?” he asked.

OAS Con­struc­to­ra was hired by the UNC to build the $7.2 bil­lion Point Fortin high­way. In April 2015, Con­struc­to­ra OAS’s par­ent com­pa­ny, Gru­pos OAS in Brazil, filed for bank­rupt­cy af­ter its ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing was se­vere­ly re­strict­ed by a cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion at Brazil­ian state-owned oil com­pa­ny, Petro­bras. By De­cem­ber 2015, OAS de­mo­bilised from its sites. Con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als were left aban­doned and over 860 work­ers did not get sev­er­ance pay.

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