Gail Alexan­der

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said yes­ter­day that UNC MP Tim Gopeesingh sent his re­quest for in­ves­ti­ga­tion of ex-Ude­cott Chair­man Calder Hart af­ter Je­re­mie had al­ready start­ed his own probe in Sep­tem­ber 2009. Je­re­mie made the point dur­ing yes­ter­day's Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion when Gopeesingh raised the is­sue of the re­quest he had made. Gopeesingh did so dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to de­bate on a fi­nance bill. The AG said that Gopeesingh's re­quest for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Hart was sub­mit­ted in Oc­to­ber 2009. Gopeesingh in his con­tri­bu­tion wad­ed in­to the PNM on ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­nies. He said bil­lions of dol­lars were used in such com­pa­nies yet they didn't fall un­der the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board which was re­spon­si­ble for scruti­ny of on­ly small­er sums.

He said the PNM's ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy leave a lot to be de­sired. He said, for in­stance, that it had to take a com­mis­sion of en­quiry to elic­it facts about Ude­cott, a spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny. Gopeesingh not­ed that eight such com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T and the Es­tate Man­age­ment Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny, had spent $1.8 bil­lion be­tween 2006 and 2007. He said com­pa­nies like Ude­cott, TTEC, EM­BD, Ned­co, Nid­co and oth­ers were of con­cern in the is­sue. Gopeesingh not­ed Ude­cott had done big projects such as The Wa­ter­front and that there had been cost over­runs on the Tarou­ba Sta­di­um. He not­ed Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had promised in 2006 to change the laws on the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board. He added that peo­ple were "fed up," and cit­ed tele­vi­sion shows, call-in pro­grammes and news­pa­per cov­er­age.