Fran­cis Joseph

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Anand Ram­lo­gan, said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der way to de­ter­mine how the for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to spend more than $1 bil­lion on the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar Broadgate Place project in Port-of-Spain–a project it will not own. Speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions meet­ing in St Au­gus­tine on Fri­day night, Ram­lo­gan read from doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted by State lawyers ex­press­ing con­cerns at the State's in­put in­to the project. Ram­lo­gan saw it as noth­ing short of a scan­dal where more than one bil­lion dol­lars was go­ing to be spent on a project with the Gov­ern­ment get­ting noth­ing in re­turn. The Broadgate project is a 26-storey build­ing bor­der­ing Hen­ry Street, Broad­way and South Quay.

Ram­lo­gan com­mend­ed two State lawyers–Karen Boodan from the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al's de­part­ment, and Sharon Mor­ris-Cum­mings, head of Le­gal Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, for their in­ter­ven­tion in this mat­ter. Cum­mings had some reser­va­tions about the Broadgate Place project, Ram­lo­gan added. She rec­om­mend­ed that a fi­nan­cial spe­cial­ist be en­gaged to as­sess the en­tire project with a view to as­sess­ing the State's fi­nan­cial ex­po­sure in this mat­ter "in light of the fact that there was no ac­count­ing mech­a­nism for the monies al­ready dis­bursed to Broadgate, not any ac­count­ing mech­a­nisms for fu­ture dis­burse­ments."

Cum­mings, in her note dat­ed May 19, con­tin­ued: "My re­quests to have this mat­ter re-ne­go­ti­at­ed have fall­en on deaf ears, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of the Hon Min­is­ter who was not pleased with the rec­om­men­da­tion to have an ex­pert re-eval­u­ate this project be­fore Cab­i­net makes a de­ci­sion on whether or not to pro­ceed fur­ther, or not with the project." She added, "It ap­pears to me that the word­ing of the note does not put the is­sues ful­ly be­fore Cab­i­net as it ap­pears to give the im­pres­sion that all is well with this project. Noth­ing can be fur­ther from the truth and the com­ments on record in var­i­ous mem­o­ran­da from the Chief State So­lic­i­tor and the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al bear this out."

Cum­mings said re-ne­go­ti­a­tion would have of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put this mat­ter on a foot­ing where the State's in­ter­est would be pro­tect­ed. "Should this project be pro­ceed­ed with in its present form, the State is com­mit­ting to spend­ing over a bil­lion dol­lars for a de­vel­op­ment that it would not own." Cum­mings added: "I can­not sit idly by in good con­science and al­low Cab­i­net to be mis­led and the State to be put at fur­ther dis­ad­van­tage, when it is in the pow­er of right think­ing men and women to do oth­er­wise."

About the Broadgate Project

The Broadgate Place project is a 26-storey build­ing op­po­site City Gate Trans­port Hub in Port-of-Spain, specif­i­cal­ly lo­cat­ed at Nos 3 and 5 Hen­ry Street, 6, 8 and 10 Broad­way and 56, 58 and 60 South Quay, Port-of-Spain. It is de­signed to com­prise a 26-storey of­fice tow­er con­sist­ing of two floors of re­tail stores in­clud­ing a food court, two floors of park­ing and 22 floors of of­fice space, with the fifth to 26th floor be­ing leased to the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GORTT).

The project is be­ing ex­e­cut­ed by the Broadgate Place Prop­er­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (BP­P­CL), a sub­sidiary of the Transcorp De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (TD­CL). The De­sign/Build Con­trac­tors are the Bouygues Ba­ti­ment Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd (BBTTCC) and Project Man­agers', Turn­er Al­pha Ltd. The project?was ex­pect­ed to start in ear­ly 2010 and shall be com­plet­ed over a pe­ri­od of 36 months, with a pro­ject­ed han­dover date in De­cem­ber 2012 for oc­cu­pa­tion of the same.