SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is call­ing on “the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties” to launch an im­me­di­ate crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pur­chase of four ves­sels to ser­vice the seabridge and Coast Guard which will cost tax­pay­ers in ex­cess of $1 bil­lion.

The call was made yes­ter­day by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark who was joined by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal at a UNC press con­fer­ence at the Op­po­si­tion’s Of­fice, Port-of-Spain, to ad­dress sev­er­al con­cerns.

Mark said an­nu­al­ly the PNM spends $35 bil­lion on goods, ser­vices and oth­er works on its State en­ter­pris­es but there was no over­sight on how they ex­pend tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars.

He said he ob­tained doc­u­ments from the Par­lia­ment web­site re­gard­ing the cred­it agree­ment with the Ex­port Fi­nance In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion (EF­IC) of Aus­tralia and T&T Gov­ern­ment for the pur­chase of the APT James which re­cent­ly sailed in­to our shores and an­oth­er ves­sel be­ing built by Aus­tralian ship­builder IN­CAT.

The com­bined cost of these two ves­sels, he said, is val­ued over $1 bil­lion and we are yet to know the terms and con­di­tions of these agree­ments.

“Up to now, in this doc­u­ment we can­not tell T&T how much mon­ey we bor­rowed for IN­CAT and EF­IC...and how much mon­ey we bor­rowed for the APT James.”

He said the on­ly way they will find out is through the con­tracts be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and sell­ers.

“But we don’t have that.”

Mark said there are two oth­er doc­u­ments they can­not find.

“That is for the two cape class ves­sels they bought for the Coast Guard. The ship­build­ing con­tracts can­not be seen.”

Mark de­scribed the pur­chase of these four ves­sels as the scan­dal of the cen­tu­ry.

“So far we have ex­pend­ed... us­ing US cur­ren­cy $617 mil­lion for these two fast fer­ries. So if it is a $bil­lion we are sup­posed to be bal­anc­ing $400 mil­lion. We want the gov­ern­ment to come clean.”

In the case of the cape class ves­sels, Mark said the Gov­ern­ment paid $655 mil­lion.

He said the gov­ern­ment had ini­tial­ly stat­ed the two ves­sels would have cost $600 mil­lion.

How­ev­er, in a Cab­i­net note the cost was list­ed at “$605 mil­lion.”

In 2011, Mark said, the Aus­tralian Roy­al Navy paid $300 mil­lion for “these same cape class ves­sels.”

Mark said af­ter the Gov­ern­ment signed a cred­it agree­ment with EF­IC of Aus­tralia on April 9, days lat­er they were no­ti­fied by EF­IC to “re­de­fine the con­tract price.”

The Gov­ern­ment, he said, had in their orig­i­nal doc­u­ment the ba­sic pur­chase price.

Mark called for an im­me­di­ate crim­i­nal probe in­to the pur­chase of the four ves­sels, stat­ing that the prices have been way too ex­or­bi­tant.

To­day, (Mon­day) he said UNC’s leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will hold a round ta­ble dis­cus­sion with for­mer PNM’s min­is­ters Karen Nunez-Tesheira and Ralph Maraj, among oth­ers, “to ad­dress this same mat­ter of re­peal­ing the in­fa­mous Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Amend­ment Act of 2020 which gut­ted Sec­tion 7 of the par­ent act and le­galised thiev­ery, ban­dit­ry and grand cor­rup­tion.”

“We will not co­op­er­ate with the PNM. We say the PNM Gov­ern­ment is like a vi­cious vam­pire...vac­u­um­ing the pub­lic vault for their friends, fam­i­lies and fi­nanciers.”

Mooni­lal al­so con­demned the PNM’s at­tempt to stop the Op­po­si­tion Leader from com­plet­ing the no con­fi­dence mo­tion brought against Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Wednes­day was an act of “gang­ster­ism.”

He said the move was “dis­gust­ing and dis­grace­ful” and “an at­tempt to cre­ate an elec­tive dic­ta­tor­ship in which they may have no Op­po­si­tion what­so­ev­er.”