KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

A Sec­ondary Roads Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and Im­prove­ment Com­pa­ny (SR­RIC) of­fi­cial claims the com­pa­ny is be­ing un­fair­ly treat­ed by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT).

The state-owned en­ter­prise, which is re­spon­si­ble for trans­form­ing sec­ondary road in­fra­struc­ture, will mark its sec­ond an­niver­sary on June 17.

How­ev­er, CEO An­to­nio Ross yes­ter­day told the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Com­mit­tee (PAAC) they are owed the ini­tial $100 mil­lion promised by the state in 2022 and an­oth­er $50 mil­lion from last year’s bud­get.

He al­so com­plained that oth­er state agen­cies, in­clud­ing the MOWT’s Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE) Unit, are be­ing favoured over them.

Ross said be­fore the es­tab­lish­ment of SR­RIC, PURE took care of all sec­ondary roads vest­ed un­der the 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions. He said hav­ing both en­ti­ties un­der the same um­brel­la is caus­ing con­flict. He al­so said the SR­RIC’s of­fice is not big enough to store im­por­tant pa­per­work. If a fam­i­ly has a child and sud­den­ly the hus­band brings the out­side child in­to that fam­i­ly, will the out­side child be treat­ed the same way as the sib­ling who was al­ways there? And I’m re­fer­ring to PURE,” he said.

“You took an­oth­er com­pa­ny that has a spe­cif­ic man­date and put it next to one un­der the same um­brel­la, in the same house­hold as one that was al­ready ful­fill­ing the same man­date. ... So, it’s been a dif­fi­cult process to be quite hon­est.”

How­ev­er, MOWT Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary So­nia Fran­cis-Year­wood de­nied the CEO’s claims of in­equal­i­ty. She said the process­es laid out for all agen­cies are the same. Fran­cis-Year­wood could not pro­vide a date when SR­RIC would be paid what was owed but re­mind­ed the PAAC that fund­ing came from the Fi­nance Min­istry. She said to move for­ward, SR­RIC must com­ply with the MOWT’s process­es.

“There is no need for state­ments about there’s this view of be­ing some out­side or stepchild, et cetera. It’s chal­leng­ing to un­der­stand where that has come from. Per­cep­tion is re­al­ly an in­ter­est­ing thing. The process­es that the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has laid out for the Sec­ondary Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Roads Com­pa­ny are the same process­es that we have laid out for all the en­ti­ties un­der the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port. That in­cludes the 13 oth­er bod­ies un­der the min­istry,” she said.

“It is not the in­ten­tion of the min­istry to keep back the work of the com­pa­ny. The added com­pac­i­ty in terms of road build­ing and road main­te­nance is wel­comed. There is enough to be done, but it must be done fol­low­ing prop­er pro­ce­dures. At the end of the day, it is state funds, it is fund­ing that is com­ing from the gov­ern­ment’s purse, so there is a process, a pro­ce­dure. If it is not fol­lowed, there is re­dress. You can ap­proach the Min­istry of Fi­nance.”

How­ev­er, Ross said the im­pres­sion that the SR­RIC did not com­ply with the min­istry was false.