KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he wants noth­ing to do with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine un­less a third par­ty is present.

Ad­dress­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic meet­ing in Calder Hall, To­ba­go, on Mon­day night, Row­ley said it took Au­gus­tine three weeks to re­lay a sto­ry that two se­nior Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters gave the THA $100 mil­lion to give their con­trac­tor friend in To­ba­go.

In a re­cent me­dia con­fer­ence ad­dress­ing a leaked au­dio clip of him and oth­ers dis­cussing plans to hire pro­pa­gan­dists, Au­gus­tine claimed a con­trac­tor was try­ing to black­mail him in­to pay­ing mon­ey owed.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Row­ley said he sus­pects Au­gus­tine was re­fer­ring to him and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert. How­ev­er, he de­nied it was giv­en for any friend, say­ing that, like the THA, Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed funds to State bod­ies to set­tle debts in­curred dur­ing the eco­nom­i­cal­ly slow pe­ri­od of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Peo­ple of T&T, you see these ly­ing politi­cians is a dis­ease and you have to take a med­i­cine for them,” he said.

Row­ley ex­plained that oil prices hov­ered around US$28 per bar­rel when the PNM took of­fice in Sep­tem­ber 2015. As prices plum­met­ed, the coun­try suf­fered a $20 bil­lion rev­enue short­fall. Then came COVID-19, and Gov­ern­ment bor­rowed $13 bil­lion to sta­bilise the econ­o­my to sus­tain wages, food sup­port and Val­ue Added Tax re­funds.

“One of the things that was hap­pen­ing is that Gov­ern­ment agen­cies in Trinidad & To­ba­go were ow­ing a lot of peo­ple and could not pay be­cause Gov­ern­ment did not have mon­ey to give them to pay for the goods and ser­vices they had al­ready in­curred or were in­cur­ring. As things got bet­ter, two things hap­pened: oil and gas prices rose, and we had done sig­nif­i­cant ne­go­ti­a­tions for new pay­ment arrange­ments,” Row­ley said.

Af­ter Im­bert re­port­ed in Au­gust 2022 that T&T earned sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue, Row­ley said Gov­ern­ment had to as­sist State agen­cies. He said it al­lo­cat­ed $1 bil­lion to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, which al­ready spent $700 mil­lion clear­ing debt. The Min­istry of Works and Trans­port got $500 mil­lion and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty al­so re­ceived funds.

Row­ley said when Im­bert asked State bod­ies what they need­ed, the THA re­quest­ed $88 mil­lion. The Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $100 mil­lion for the THA to pay out as it saw fit.

“In­stead of Far­ley com­ing and telling you the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has done that, he comes to tell you that we gave him mon­ey to give our friend and to tell him how much to pay his friend and so on. That is a man not to be trust­ed.”

Row­ley al­so ad­mit­ted that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion (IC) was in­ves­ti­gat­ing him for pur­chas­ing a town­house at In­ez Gate, Shir­van Road, To­ba­go. Row­ley said he bought the town­house for $1.2 mil­lion and paid for it from his sav­ings. He said that ac­cord­ing to the IC, he should have paid $1.6 mil­lion, and the sell­er gave him a gift of $400,000.

“I must be the on­ly id­iot who bought a town­house be­fore it was built on Shir­van Road. All of a sud­den, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion must tell them how much to charge me for it. Not that the sell­er and buy­er could agree on a price, but they want to tell their UNC friends that I am un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Pro­vid­ing an up­date on the va­cant THA Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor po­si­tion, Row­ley said he ex­pect­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to send him a let­ter with the name of its can­di­date this week. Row­ley said he would con­sult with Au­gus­tine, and if it is the same per­son Au­gus­tine rec­om­mend­ed, they al­ready con­sult­ed, and he knows the po­si­tion. If it is some­one else, they will con­sult.

“The most se­nior pub­lic ser­vant in To­ba­go in the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter has been re­moved, and a prop­er va­can­cy now ex­ists, so we have to wait. So, if to­mor­row or the day af­ter or next week you hear any­body in To­ba­go say­ing it is be­cause of the Prime Min­is­ter, they lie.”

Mean­while, leader of the To­ba­go arm of the PNM, An­cil Den­nis called on the po­lice to ex­pand its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to leaked voice record­ing, al­leg­ing that Au­gus­tine was, in­deed, plan­ning a pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign.

Den­nis claimed the THA’s Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil had ap­proved the cre­ation of sev­en posts fol­low­ing the voice record­ing in 2022. He gave the full name of an in­di­vid­ual he said ben­e­fit­ed from this move. He said the per­son was hired in Au­gust 2022 by the THA and lat­er giv­en a three-year con­tract for $14,000 a month from Ju­ly.

“That is the pay­ment of go­ing on Face­book,” he said.

He said the fol­low­ing the THA elec­tions in 2021, all per­son­al staff would have been hired.

“I want to point the peo­ple and the po­lice to some doc­u­ments. By way of mem­o­ran­dum to the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor dat­ed Au­gust 2, 2022 and the ECM minute num­ber is 305 and the minute was dat­ed Au­gust 2022, this cur­rent Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil agreed to the cre­ation of 7 ad­di­tion­al po­si­tions called ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.”

Den­nis said it wasn’t the PNM that leaked the record­ing, but he men­tioned there were peo­ple in the room when the record­ing was made who were al­so prob­a­bly fed-up with the THA ex­ec­u­tive.

(With re­port­ing by Shas­tri Boodan)