Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty can­di­date Trevor James has threat­ened jail time for for­mer THA chief sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis and for­mer in­fra­struc­ture sec­re­tary Kwe­si Des Vi­gnes, over what he de­scribed as mas­sive cor­rup­tion in road con­tracts across To­ba­go.

James made the al­le­ga­tions while ad­dress­ing a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, where he ac­cused Den­nis and DesVi­gnes of hand­pick­ing a sin­gle con­trac­tor and award­ing mul­ti­ple road con­tracts with­out ten­der­ing, lead­ing up to the Jan­u­ary 2021 elec­tion.

He told sup­port­ers that the mat­ter re­mains “un­fin­ished busi­ness” and said To­bag­o­ni­ans must not for­get what he de­scribed as se­ri­ous wrong­do­ing.

“When we have this group of peo­ple in To­ba­go who be­lieve that some­how they sit qui­et­ly for a few months that all that they did in the past will fade away and the heat will some­how cool down and To­ba­go is go­ing to for­get,” James said. “But we can’t for­get.”

James claimed that on De­cem­ber 18, 2020, Den­nis and DesVi­gnes award­ed 25 road con­tracts to one con­trac­tor on the same day, by­pass­ing the ten­der­ing process.

“So Kwe­si DesVi­gnes and An­sil Den­nis de­cid­ed 2020 De­cem­ber 18 to hand out 25 con­tracts to one of the con­tract ca­bal,” he said. “He jumped over ten­der­ing, he jumped over ten­der re­sponse, he jumped over eval­u­a­tion and he de­cid­ed that he go­ing to hand pick this con­trac­tor and award him 25 con­tracts in one day.”