Brent Zephyrine

For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day says En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan ought to have known about a $40 mil­lion con­tract which is about to be award­ed by Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP).He al­so de­scribed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's call for "pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion" to deal with such process­es as "pulling a red her­ring over peo­ple's path.""The min­is­ter is re­spon­si­ble for the award of con­tracts and there­fore, can­not ab­di­cate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for what is part of her port­fo­lio," Pan­day said yes­ter­day."NP is un­der her purview and she must have the re­port­ing mech­a­nism by which she knows what is go­ing on."Pan­day was com­ment­ing on al­le­ga­tions of bias in NP's award of a sev­en-year con­tract for trans­porta­tion of high­ly flam­ma­ble gaso­line to a garbage con­trac­tor in east Trinidad.

CDS Trans­port Ltd, the com­pa­ny al­leg­ing pro­ce­dur­al bias in the ten­der­ing process, had re­quest­ed the in­ter­ven­tion of Seep­er­sad-Bachan to in­ves­ti­gate and have NP jus­ti­fy why it was not the pre­ferred bid­der de­spite hav­ing "the low­est bid" and "the best track record and ex­pe­ri­ence" to de­liv­er the ser­vice.Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who or­dered a probe in­to the mat­ter on Fri­day, re­ceived a re­port on the mat­ter from the NP board three days ago.On Fri­day, the line min­is­ter said she was not ful­ly ap­prised on the award of the con­tract and was nei­ther "re­spon­si­ble" nor in a po­si­tion to "di­rect state en­ter­pris­es to award con­tracts to any­one."That same day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that the con­tract was not brought be­fore her or any mem­ber of her Cab­i­net.

Asked if it was pos­si­ble for a con­tract of this na­ture not to have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to ei­ther the line min­is­ter or the Prime Min­is­ter, Pan­day said while it is true that every con­tract need not "come be­fore the Cab­i­net," "a good min­is­ter" would have been ful­ly aware of what was hap­pen­ing in his min­istry."If NP can award a con­tract on its own with­out the min­is­ter even know­ing then what sort of Gov­ern­ment is this?"He then trained his guns on Per­sad-Bisses­sar whom he ac­cused of us­ing leg­is­la­tion as a de­fence to is­sues of cor­rupt prac­tices.On Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said "pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion" was need­ed to "have a prop­er mech­a­nism for track­ing" and the is­sue is cur­rent­ly be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee.

Pan­day said if min­is­ters "per­formed their func­tions prop­er­ly" there would be no need to im­ple­ment "track­ing" pro­ce­dures to deal with such trans­paren­cy is­sues."Every­time you talk about cor­rup­tion, she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) talks about the leg­is­la­tion cur­rent­ly be­fore Par­lia­ment but there is suf­fi­cient leg­is­la­tion in place right now to en­sure that con­tracts are award­ed fair­ly," he said."There is suf­fi­cient pro­ce­dure ex­ist­ing by which a min­is­ter must be re­spon­si­ble for his or her port­fo­lio."You don't need leg­is­la­tion for that. To talk about leg­is­la­tion is re­al­ly to pull a red her­ring over peo­ple's path.""If the min­is­ter is not re­spon­si­ble then who is?"