Richard Lord

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan says there is no ev­i­dence to sup­port claims that a $40 mil­lion con­tract was award­ed to an east garbage truck­ing com­pa­ny to trans­port flam­ma­ble gaso­line by Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd (NP).Seep­er­sad-Bachan re­vealed that af­ter telling re­porters she re­ceived a re­port on the mat­ter yes­ter­day.Me­dia re­ports say the con­tract was award­ed to the busi­ness­man.The min­is­ter said she had since re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the facts of the mat­ter.

She said she ex­pect­ed to have the sec­ond re­port and re­view it with­in 48 hours.She was ques­tioned dur­ing yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives tea break."No, there was no con­tract from my un­der­stand­ing as yet. No con­tract was award­ed," she in­sist­ed.She was asked to re­spond to an al­leged link be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the busi­ness­man but kept her fo­cus on the con­tract is­sue.Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the NP board was en­trust­ed with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure con­tracts were award­ed in ac­cor­dance with the com­pa­ny's ten­der­ing pro­ce­dures.

The min­is­ter said it was her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure there was an open and com­pet­i­tive bid­ding process in ac­cor­dance with the com­pa­ny's rules. She stressed her role at that time was to en­sure "there was a fair process, it was a com­pet­i­tive process and the best com­pa­ny is se­lect­ed in ac­cor­dance with val­ue for mon­ey."She said she got the val­u­a­tion re­port "but I want­ed to see some of the de­lib­er­a­tions that took place at the ten­ders com­mit­tee meet­ing and at the board lev­el."

She said based on the in­for­ma­tion in her po­si­tion she could not give a clear in­di­ca­tion of the pos­si­ble out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion."I still can­not say at this point in time. Cer­tain rec­om­men­da­tions were made and those rec­om­men­da­tions we know would bear mer­it," she added.Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she was re­fer­ring to the man­age­ment's rec­om­men­da­tions to the ten­ders' com­mit­tee and the ten­ders' com­mit­tee's rec­om­men­da­tion to the board of di­rec­tors.She said if there was a need to have the mat­ter re­ferred to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion "be­lieve me I will for­ward it to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al."