Ques­tions raised by the Op­po­si­tion Leader over the award of mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar con­tracts to com­pa­nies owned by a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, who al­so holds a se­nior ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tion in the rul­ing PNM, have once again raised the per­cep­tion of nepo­tism at state-run com­pa­nies.

This is not a new claim and the is­sue has been de­bat­ed ad nau­se­am by po­lit­i­cal par­ties, de­pend­ing on which one is in pow­er.

In a rel­a­tive­ly small coun­try such as Trinidad and To­ba­go, busi­ness­es owned by peo­ple in­volved in pol­i­tics or af­fil­i­at­ed with po­lit­i­cal­ly-ex­posed peo­ple are bound to sur­face in the ten­der­ing and award of state con­tracts.

These busi­ness own­ers should not nec­es­sar­i­ly face dis­crim­i­na­tion but an­oth­er lay­er of trans­paren­cy should be in­sti­tut­ed and greater pub­lic over­sight in­sti­tut­ed to erase all doubt of col­lu­sion.

The al­le­ga­tions which form the crux of the crim­i­nal cas­es against politi­cians and con­trac­tors who con­struct­ed the $1.6 bil­lion Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project is just one such in­stance which has dogged the trans­paren­cy of the for­mer Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Gov­ern­ment min­istries and spe­cial state-run com­pa­nies are in­volved in var­i­ous lev­els of busi­ness op­er­a­tions. Many of these com­pa­nies fol­low pro­to­cols es­tab­lished by the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board on how they re­view prospec­tive ten­ders from con­trac­tors and some­times, based on the spe­cif­ic job, can on­ly award the con­tract based on sole se­lec­tive ten­der­ing.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar chose a po­lit­i­cal plat­form on Sun­day to raise ques­tions about con­tracts award­ed to com­pa­nies af­fil­i­at­ed with PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings.

Mr Cum­mings has re­fut­ed the in­nu­en­dos of favouritism, as did state or­gan­i­sa­tion UDe­COTT, in the award of the con­tract to de­mol­ish the old Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion and con­struct a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

UDe­COTT, which has in the past been ac­cused of not fol­low­ing prop­er ten­der rules in its haste to con­struct mega-projects un­der the for­mer Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, was adamant it com­plied with its ten­der rules and reg­u­la­tions in the award of con­tracts for the de­mo­li­tion of the po­lice sta­tion and con­struc­tion of the In­di­an Trail Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Cou­va.

While the com­pa­ny main­tained it does not dis­suade peo­ple or cor­po­rate en­ti­ties, po­lit­i­cal par­ty or oth­er­wise, from ten­der­ing for a con­tract, it not­ed that it was un­for­tu­nate the al­le­ga­tions in­ferred the projects done by com­pa­nies owned or af­fil­i­at­ed with Mr Cum­mings were giv­en based on par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion.

Mr Cum­mings mean­while not­ed he had been in busi­ness long be­fore he was ap­point­ed a sen­a­tor and dis­missed the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s claims as des­per­ate pol­i­tics.

The Prime Min­is­ter, who once held the port­fo­lio over­see­ing UDe­COTT, has cho­sen not to re­spond to Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims.

While we hold no brief for Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar, such claims ought to be doused quick­ly with facts to en­sure pub­lic con­fi­dence in those in­sti­tu­tions is not erod­ed.