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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Watts sends file to AG over contracts given to PNM officials at Youth Ministry

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15 days ago
20250624
Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Phillip Watts speaks during the debate on a Motion to Adopt the Report of the Standing Finance Committee in Parliament yesterday.

Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Phillip Watts speaks during the debate on a Motion to Adopt the Report of the Standing Finance Committee in Parliament yesterday.

COURTESY:OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Philip Watts says he sub­mit­ted a file to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie for ad­vice for what he de­scribed as wan­ton wastage at the Youth Min­istry led by his pre­de­ces­sor.

He said his for­mer po­lit­i­cal friend Fos­ter Cum­mings sanc­tioned "ob­scene wastage, fis­cal ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and reck­less mis­man­age­ment" at the now de­funct Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice.

Watts, who was once Cum­mings con­stituen­cy chair­man, be­fore switch­ing sides and beat­ing him out of the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro seat, said Cum­mings award­ed con­tracts to po­lit­i­cal friends.

“These con­tracts were not ap­proved by the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer in the min­istry, but it was ap­proved by the for­mer min­is­ter. Mis­ter Speak­er, I have tak­en that file and giv­en it to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.”

He said there was a surge of short-term em­ploy­ment from Jan­u­ary up to the eve of the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He said what was found was noth­ing short of scan­dalous du­plic­i­ty and cal­cu­lat­ed de­ceit.

He added that there were 61 short-term con­tracts award­ed with his ad­vi­sors say­ing some were un­qual­i­fied for the po­si­tion they got.

Some of the con­tracts were award­ed to for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia as a tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sor and youth train­ing for $23,000 month­ly. For­mer chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Kwasi Robin­son was earn­ing $22,000 a month. For­mer sen­a­tor Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing was con­tract­ed as a pro­gramme co­or­di­na­tor for youth in busi­ness at a cost of $22,000 month­ly.

“I was told by the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer that they nev­er saw Mrs Lee-Sing Leza­ma on the job for a day,” Watts claimed.

Ndale Young, a for­mer sen­a­tor, was earn­ing $16,000 a month as the tech­ni­cal co­or­di­na­tor at the min­istry and in charge of the Youth Ca­reer, Ed­u­ca­tion and Health car­a­van.

Watts said he saw a time sheet show­ing that Young was not com­ing to work for days. He dis­put­ed a so­cial me­dia post that Young was fired say­ing he fired him­self be­cause he was not show­ing up for work and aban­doned the job.

“What we see here is a glar­ing pat­tern of mis­use of pub­lic funds for par­ti­san gains mas­querad­ing as gov­er­nance. It is noth­ing short of dis­grace­ful. What we see here is so dis­grace­ful, some­how what we see here is short-term con­tracts were re­ward­ed for a se­lect­ed few in pur­suit of elec­toral ad­van­tage.”

Watts claimed the Youth Ca­reer, Ed­u­ca­tion and Health car­a­van, en­gaged in ex­ces­sive spend­ing with­out de­liv­er­ing any val­ue start­ing off with an an­nu­al bud­get in 2023 for $148,000 that bal­looned to $400,000 per car­a­van in April.

In two car­a­vans on the East­er week­end, the min­istry was billed over $800,000 with the cost dis­ag­gre­gat­ed for en­ter­tain­ment, rental of maxi-taxis, cater­ing and oth­er costs.

He added that the de­liv­ery of ser­vice for the two car­a­vans is now be­ing ques­tioned by his min­istry as there were no maxi-taxis present yet there were in­voic­es for them.

Com­ment­ing on the Youth Ap­pren­tice and Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP), Watts said it was Cum­mings “sell­ing dreams to youths” de­scrib­ing the pro­gramme as a dis­as­ter.

He said the can­di­dates were to be trained by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and were to be giv­en two acres of land, a starter home and a $20,000 grant. To date that promise has yet to ma­te­ri­al­ize as the first co­hort, who grad­u­at­ed in 2022, ma­jor­i­ty are still await­ing what was promised to them.

Watts said the first group had 200 peo­ple en­rolled with three-quar­ters of that grad­u­at­ing. He said to date, on­ly 50 homes com­menced and eight com­plet­ed. The oth­er 42 homes re­mained un­der con­struc­tion with the rest await­ing their homes and grants.

He added that there are two oth­er batch­es to be re­ward­ed, one that grad­u­at­ed in Jan­u­ary and an­oth­er to grad­u­ate in Sep­tem­ber.

Watts called for an au­dit of the El Do­ra­do Girls Youth Camp as an au­di­to­ri­um re­mains in­com­plete with 75 per cent of the work done yet most of the con­tract­ed sum of $28 mil­lion plus a $7 mil­lion vari­a­tion al­ready paid.

Ef­forts last evening to con­tact Cum­mings were un­suc­cess­ful.


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