Joel Julien

Two and a half mil­lion dol­lars. That is how much the To­ba­go House of Asem­bly’s Di­vi­sion of Tourism, led by Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, spent on a High An­gle Canopy Course project for Main Ridge. How­ev­er, all the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment could sub­se­quent­ly find for the mon­ey spent on the project was some rope in a store room.

The find­ings are con­tained in the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port on the op­er­a­tions of the THA for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2016, which is rid­dled with ques­tions about the op­er­a­tion of the As­sem­bly.

On No­vem­ber 12 last year, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment wrote a let­ter ad­dressed to the THA’s Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor to in­form of the find­ings of the au­dit. That let­ter was signed by act­ing Au­dit Di­rec­tor Ali­cia Bai­ley-Job.

On page 15 of the let­ter, the is­sues sur­round­ing the pro­posed course at the Main Ridge in To­ba­go were high­light­ed.

“A ser­vice agree­ment dat­ed 12 June 2015 showed that the Di­vi­sion of Tourism and Trans­porta­tion con­tract­ed with a British Vir­gin Is­land cor­po­ra­tion lo­cat­ed at Tor­to­la to de­sign, de­vel­op and con­struct a “High An­gle” Canopy Tour Course in the Main Ridge at an ini­tial cost of US$ 531,610,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al not­ed, how­ev­er, that no ap­proval was pre­sent­ed from the THA’s Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil for the es­tab­lish­ment of the fa­cil­i­ty.

A to­tal of $2,511,210.20 was paid to the THA for “ma­te­ri­als and equip­ment; how­ev­er the ex­is­tence of these as­sets was not ver­i­fied” the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port stat­ed.

“A vis­it to the Stores sec­tion of the Di­vi­sion re­vealed on­ly some ropes on hand,” the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al stat­ed.

On June 23, 2015, the THA paid $1,765,469.10 for “70 per cent of ma­te­ri­als and equip­ment for Canopy project,” the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s let­ter stat­ed. And just over four months lat­er, on Oc­to­ber 27, 2015, a fur­ther $745,741.10 was paid for the re­main­ing 30 per cent of ma­te­ri­als and equip­ment for the project.

At the time, David­son-Cen­es­tine was the Tourism Sec­re­tary with di­rect re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the project.

This is­sue has be­come one of the talk­ing points in the build-up to the THA elec­tion card­ed for Jan­u­ary 25.

Speak­ing dur­ing a meet­ing over the week­end, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots’ (PDP) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine, the can­di­date for Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side, said he had in­ves­ti­gat­ed the Tor­to­la com­pa­ny and dis­cov­ered it went bank­rupt.

“I dis­cov­ered they (Tourism Di­vi­sion) were tak­ing the ma­te­r­i­al and stor­ing them in a com­pa­ny in Mi­a­mi...the stor­age com­pa­ny went bank­rupt ... It means our equip­ment are rack­ing up hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in stor­age fees and will now be sub­ject to auc­tion. We might be look­ing for a zip line in our rain­for­est, but we will nev­er get as much as a piece of a ny­lon string,” Au­gus­tine stat­ed.

How­ev­er, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil has re­spond­ed, say­ing that the 1.5 kilo­me­tre zip line project is still in the works.

In a press re­lease on Jan­u­ary 11 the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil said al­though the project was com­mis­sioned when its cur­rent po­lit­i­cal leader (David­son-Ce­les­tine) was Sec­re­tary for Tourism and Trans­porta­tion, the work had “bare­ly start­ed when she left of­fice.”

The Di­vi­sion of Tourism had been sad­dled with sev­er­al projects ap­proved by David­son-Ce­les­tine and her team which re­main in­com­plete al­though tens of mil­lions of tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars have been spent on them, in­clud­ing the pur­chase of ho­tels, the Main Ridge project and re­pairs to sev­er­al sites and at­trac­tions.

David­son-Ce­les­tine is the PNM’s can­di­date for the Lam­beau/Sig­nal Hill in the up­com­ing THA elec­tion.

Re­sp­nd­ing to Au­gus­tine’s claims dur­ing a sub­se­quent PNM meet­ing, David­son-Ce­les­tine said, “I am very re­sults-ori­ent­ed ... and my ad­min­is­tra­tion will en­sure that we de­liv­er on those fa­cil­i­ties promised. In­vest­ment in sites and at­trac­tions are crit­i­cal in ex­pand­ing eco and ad­ven­ture tourism. So de­liv­er­ing at least two zi­plines is a pri­or­i­ty for us go­ing for­ward.”

But the dis­crep­an­cy on the Main Ridge project was not the on­ly con­cern high­light­ed by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

On page 29 of the re­port, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al high­light­ed is­sues sur­round­ing the es­crow ac­count for the $143 mil­lion Mil­shirv project.

The THA launched the project in 2013 af­ter pur­chas­ing three acres of land from a lim­it­ed li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny at a cost of $12 mil­lion in No­vem­ber 2011. The lim­it­ed li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny agreed to con­struct an of­fice build­ing which, on com­ple­tion, would be leased to the THA for 20 years. It was to be used by the Di­vi­sion of Agri­cul­ture, Ma­rine Af­fairs, Mar­ket­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment by way of a BOLT (Build-Own/Op­er­ate-Lease-Trans­fer) arrange­ment.

“Para­graph One of the Sup­ple­men­tal Deed dat­ed 14 Ju­ly, 2012 re­quired that the sum of $21,569,248 be placed on an es­crow ac­count and rep­re­sent­ed 18 month’s rent in ad­vance payable un­der the Of­fice lease,” the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s let­ter stat­ed.

“In ac­cor­dance with Note 8 to the Fi­nan­cial State­ment, the Es­crow ac­count at a com­mer­cial bank for Mil­shirv Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed was closed on 12 Ju­ly, 2016. An ex­am­i­na­tion showed that the sum of $21569.248 and $101,592.24 were with­drawn from the ac­count on 29 April, 2016 and 12 Ju­ly 2016 re­spec­tive­ly,” it stat­ed.

How­ev­er, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port stat­ed that a no­tice from the bank dat­ed 14 Ju­ly, 2012 “in­di­cat­ing to whom the funds were re­leased was how­ev­er not pro­duced for au­dit.”

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al al­so not­ed that among the dis­crep­an­cies was that the THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil’s min­utes ap­prov­ing more than $7 mil­lion in prop­er­ty rent each year was not seen.

David­son-Ce­les­tine re­cent­ly pro­nounced that dur­ing the 20 years of the PNM be­ing in pow­er in the To­ba­go, there has been no cor­rup­tion.