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Friday, July 25, 2025

PM, UNC clash on need for probes into Tobago contracts

by

Gail Alexander
765 days ago
20230620
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley responds to a question during  yesterday’s sitting of Parliament.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley responds to a question during yesterday’s sitting of Parliament.

OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said yes­ter­day he had no “friend col­lect­ing mon­ey from the Gov­ern­ment” on his in­struc­tions —and there’s noth­ing for him to in­ves­ti­gate with the for­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sion to pur­chase 13 acres of land from the Warn­er Group of Com­pa­nies at the price of $43 mil­lion.

He made the com­ment in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day fol­low­ing ques­tions from UNC MPs Rod­ney Charles and Roodal Mooni­lal on whether he’d probe cer­tain is­sues by the for­mer PNM-con­trolled THA. Row­ley clashed with the Op­po­si­tion in his replies and flung back al­leged UNC is­sues.

Charles asked about re­cent al­le­ga­tions of malfea­sance in the is­su­ing of con­tracts by the for­mer THA ad­min­is­tra­tion, and if Row­ley had re­quest­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion of this.

Row­ley said, “I don’t know of what he speaks.”

He said maybe if Charles has in­for­ma­tion on se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of malfea­sance, “... And, of course, if he does, know he’ll run to the cor­rect au­thor­i­ty.”

Row­ley said there are au­thor­i­ties es­tab­lished for this pur­pose, so if what Charles heard was true, he was sure the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and po­lice would have al­so heard it.

Charles asked about THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s re­cent state­ments that two se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials “pres­sured” the THA to pay a cer­tain con­trac­tor “... Who hap­pens to be your friend.”

Row­ley said, “I have no friend who’s col­lect­ing any mon­ey from the Gov­ern­ment on my in­struc­tions be­cause au­thor­i­ties have the right to spend Gov­ern­ment mon­ey with re­spect to their au­thor­i­ty and as far as the state­ment by the Chief Sec­re­tary...the Chief Sec­re­tary can ex­plain him­self.”

Charles asked if Row­ley was say­ing if malfea­sance oc­curs un­der his watch that he didn’t care whether it’s re­vealed.

Row­ley said, “Cer­tain­ly not ... that’s why so many of them (UNC) in dif­fi­cul­ty with the state...”

When UNC’s Rudy In­dars­ingh ob­ject­ed to Row­ley mak­ing “wild ac­cu­sa­tions with­out sub­stan­ti­a­tion,” Row­ley said. “My friend is call­ing his col­league from Pointe-a-Pierre ‘noth­ing’? What you mean with­out any sub­stan­ti­a­tion? I have a col­league in this House who on a $1 mil­lion bail! I have an­oth­er col­league who be­fore the High Court - so what you com­ing to tell me!”

Row­ley said he wasn’t go­ing to be in the habit of hav­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to every wild al­le­ga­tion the Op­po­si­tion makes, “But we do have MPs here who have se­ri­ous dif­fi­cul­ty with the court and the po­lice!”

THA land pur­chase from Warn­er

Mooni­lal had asked, fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions re­gard­ing the for­mer THA ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sion to pur­chase 13 acres of land from the Warn­er Group at the price of $43m for con­struc­tion of a sec­ondary school, if Row­ley in­tend­ed to or­der an in­de­pen­dent probe of the pur­chase.

Row­ley said he wasn’t aware of any such trans­ac­tion by the THA but if there was ba­sis for the state­ment, the THA has full au­thor­i­ty un­der law to pur­chase land. He said he had no in­for­ma­tion on what the price might have been.

He added, “What I do know, is there’s a re­quire­ment in To­ba­go to re­lo­cate the Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary school and the THA was search­ing for an ap­pro­pri­ate site ... my friends in this House are fish­ing for some mark to buss. This isn’t one of them so I have noth­ing to in­ves­ti­gate.”

Mooni­lal asked, since Row­ley had “great in­ter­est” in the pur­chase of Eden Gar­dens on the claim the price was in­flat­ed, if Row­ley didn’t have the same in­ter­est that the To­ba­go land was val­ued at $13m and pur­chased at $30m more.

Row­ley re­tort­ed, “One of the rea­sons I have no in­ter­est in this, like Eden Gar­dens, is that no­body in the Val­u­a­tion De­part­ment re­ceived a cheque from the sell­er! As the ev­i­dence of that is avail­able —the MP doth protest too much!”

Mooni­lal asked how Row­ley would be aware that in this mat­ter of the Warn­er Group, there’s noth­ing il­le­gal and if he in­ves­ti­gat­ed it. Row­ley said he’d tak­en no po­si­tion on the mat­ter, since if it turns out the THA has bought land, they have the au­thor­i­ty to pur­chase land.

But he said he’d put on the record the Eden Gar­den is­sue - land val­ued at $59m and sold at $180m.

“... And you’ll have your day in court!” Row­ley shout­ed, with UNC MPs shout­ing back.

Mooni­lal asked if Row­ley was aware the To­ba­go is­sue in­volved a “$30m over­price” by Warn­er Group and if that mon­ey was part of a “gen­er­ous de­duc­tion in the pur­chase of apart­ments in To­ba­go.”

Row­ley said, “I know not of which you speak...!”

Ar­gu­ing was still oc­cur­ring as pro­ceed­ings moved on.


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