Gail Alexan­der

The ten­der­ing process in which a fam­i­ly firm be­long­ing to Plan­ning Min­is­ter Mary King re­ceived a gov­ern­ment con­tract from King's own min­istry was "high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate," Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed yes­ter­day. "The mat­ter was brought to my at­ten­tion re­cent­ly af­ter the process had been com­plet­ed and I made it clear that, on the ba­sis of in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed me, it was high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made her po­si­tion clear in the is­sue, dis­tanc­ing her­self com­plete­ly from re­port­ed state­ments by King that the PM had heard about the con­tract, was giv­en doc­u­men­ta­tion on it and was "very sat­is­fied.""To­tal­ly false and def­i­nite­ly un­true!" Per­sad- Bisses­sar said when asked about King's claim yes­ter­day.Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ment­ed on the is­sue dur­ing a vis­it to Mt Hope Ma­ter­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal.This fol­lowed re­ports that a fam­i­ly com­pa­ny of King had won the Gov­ern­ment Web site de­vel­op­ment con­tract val­ued al­most $100,000 from her own Min­istry last No­vem­ber.

Con­cern has arisen in the Gov­ern­ment since King al­leged­ly failed to dis­close her fam­i­ly in­ter­est in the soft­ware en­gi­neer­ing com­pa­ny, Ix­anos Ltd in which she is a joint share­hold­er with her hus­band, St Clair King.King's el­dest son, Stephen, is busi­ness de­vel­op­ment man­ag­er of the com­pa­ny. Its reg­is­tered St Au­gus­tine ad­dress and tele­phone num­ber are al­so the same as the min­is­ter's own pri­vate con­sult­ing firm-Mary King and As­so­ciates.King, an econ­o­mist, sen­a­tor and mem­ber of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) is re­port­ed to have said that there was no con­flict of in­ter­est or breach of the law re­gard­ing the con­tract award­ed to her fam­i­ly busi­ness over 16 oth­er bid­ders.

King, a for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, is al­so re­port­ed to have said Per­sad-Bisses­sar "had heard about it" and had been giv­en "the whole process, all the doc­u­men­ta­tion and she was very sat­is­fied."King is re­port­ed to have said she col­lect­ed and gave the Prime Min­is­ter the doc­u­ments and records from the min­istry and that Per­sad- Bisses­sar had got de­tails of the con­tract. She al­so said the PM ac­cept­ed her doc­u­men­ta­tion and "that was the end of it." But speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day, Per­sad- Bisses­sar deemed King's claim "To­tal­ly un­true....!"The PM added, "If it is al­leged that I okayed that con­tract, that is to­tal­ly false and def­i­nite­ly un­true!"

Per­sad- Bisses­sar is­sued a sub­se­quent me­dia state­ment re­in­forc­ing her con­cern over the con­tract.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Me­dia re­ports pub­lished, at­trib­uted to Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing and Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter Mary King which state that I as Prime Min­is­ter had been in­formed of the whole ten­der­ing process on the Gov­ern­ment Web site de­vel­op­ment con­tract are en­tire­ly and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly er­ro­neous.""The mat­ter was brought to my at­ten­tion re­cent­ly af­ter the process had been com­plet­ed and I made it clear, that on the ba­sis of the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed me, it was high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was await­ing a re­port on the mat­ter at this time."So I may be bet­ter in­formed to make a de­ci­sion which en­sures that the in­tegri­ty of the Gov­ern­ment re­mains in­tact."A Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship source said a meet­ing was ex­pect­ed be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and King, ahead of Tues­day's Sen­ate ses­sion where King was ex­pect­ed to be.Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, while vis­it­ing San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, when asked to com­ment on the is­sue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said she need­ed to speak to the min­is­ter and get more de­tails be­fore com­ment­ing.

On whether King sent her any doc­u­ments, Per­sad- Bisses­sar had re­peat­ed that she would have to be briefed.King was con­tact­ed yes­ter­day about the state­ments she was re­port­ed to have made.But King, who had once been chair­man of T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) said: "I don't want to make any com­ment."TT­TI chair­man Richard Joseph yes­ter­day said yes­ter­day that TT­TI was con­cerned about the mat­ter."TT­TI urges that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter be prompt­ly com­plet­ed with an un­am­bigu­ous state­ment ei­ther clear­ing the min­is­ter's name or in­di­cat­ing that due process will be fol­lowed if it is found that there has been a breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act and or any laws or poli­cies gov­ern­ing pub­lic pro­cure­ment," Joseph said.