An "over­sight" was the rea­son why some Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) doc­u­ments to be dis­posed of, were not prop­er­ly shred­ded, ac­cord­ing to Stu­art Young (Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice) yes­ter­day.

Re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion queries in the Sen­ate, he said as soon as the EBC be­came aware of the is­sue they con­tact­ed the firm han­dling the dis­pos­al - New Age Re­cy­cling, for­mer­ly Ace re­cy­cling - and en­sured that all re­main­ing doc­u­ments in their pos­ses­sion were sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly de­stroyed.

Young not­ed there is no fixed con­tract for dis­pos­al of elec­tion doc­u­ments of pa­per waste at EBC and no one is se­lect­ed ran­dom­ly for work. He said the EBC is an in­de­pen­dent body and when nec­es­sary the com­mis­sion con­tacts the com­pa­ny to col­lect shred­ded waste and that com­pa­ny dis­pos­es of it at no cost.

Young al­so said a probe wasn't re­quired in­to the ac­qui­si­tion of To­ba­go's Man­ta Lodge raised by UNC's Wade Mark and he wasn't aware of the mat­ter. Mark asked if the PNM's To­ba­go leader (Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine) was the Tourism sec­re­tary when the lodge was ac­quired.