Gail Alexan­der

"Do we pack up and leave T&T and our busi­ness sim­ply be­cause we know the Prime Min­is­ter?" That was the ques­tion yes­ter­day from Ralph Gopaul, head of Gopaul and Co Ltd (GCL) - a garbage col­lec­tion com­pa­ny-which is at the cen­tre of the cur­rent is­sue con­cern­ing a $40 mil­lion NP con­tract.

Gopaul broke his si­lence yes­ter­day, af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter's ad­mis­sion that she is a friend of his fam­i­ly. Gopaul's fam­i­ly owns the Tu­na­puna res­i­dence where Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stayed be­fore and af­ter the May 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Tues­day that she was "friends" with the Gopauls. CDS Trans­port which has been sup­ply­ing truck­ing ser­vices to NP and which was among short-list­ed bid­ders for the con­tract-along with GCL-has dis­put­ed the process. Yes­ter­day, CDS' at­tor­ney Mar­tin George wrote the Gov­ern­ment-in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter-to sup­ply cer­tain fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the is­sue, af­ter state­ments by var­i­ous min­is­ters, in­clud­ing the PM, this week. Gopaul is now in Cana­da and due home next week.

Yes­ter­day, Gopaul told Guardian that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was "close friends" with his fam­i­ly and his fa­ther as well. "Both fam­i­lies (Per­sad-Bisses­sar's and Gopauls) know each oth­er," he added. He said his com­pa­ny had ten­dered to NP for the con­tract and was await­ing word from NP. Gopaul ex­plained that his com­pa­ny had on­ly ten­dered for sup­ply of 20 trucks. "We will not be sup­ply­ing dri­vers...NP has trained dri­vers and they are sup­ply­ing that as­pect," he said. "We are on­ly sup­ply­ing trucks and main­tain­ing and ser­vic­ing for them. "We have a com­pa­ny from Eng­land who is sup­ply­ing the trucks and they will train our me­chan­ics to deal with them."

Gopaul said he had not bought the nec­es­sary trucks yet, since he had not yet heard from NP on the ten­der. "You can on­ly buy if you know you're get­ting the ten­ders," he added. He said NP was giv­ing GCL four months to get the nec­es­sary equip­ment in place. Sound­ing af­fa­ble, though mild­ly testy about the pub­lic scruti­ny, Gopaul said he want­ed to ask the gen­er­al pub­lic: "...If I should leave T&T, if my fam­i­ly should pack up and leave our busi­ness and all our con­tracts since my fam­i­ly knows the Prime Min­is­ter?"

He added: "Should we pack up and leave be­cause of that?...Tell us where to go-the pub­lic should an­swer that."

Gopaul said busi­ness peo­ple should be free to ten­der for con­tracts. He said he was watch­ing to "see how this plays out." Mean­while, Trade Min­istry in­for­ma­tion yes­ter­day con­firmed that the head of a di­vi­sion of the Gopaul and Co Ltd en­ti­ty had been among the list of busi­ness­men who trav­elled to Brazil last month, ac­com­pa­ny­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar on that trade mis­sion. GCL in­volves a sub­sidiary that im­ports ba­sic food items-flour, sug­ar, oil, rice- while an­oth­er di­vi­sion deals with the garbage col­lec­tion busi­ness. The week-long trade mis­sion to Brazil in­clud­ed 13 busi­ness­men. The min­istry's list con­firmed the pres­ence of Nigel Pi­ral­li, head of Gopaul and Co Ltd's food di­vi­sion. The con­fir­ma­tion was al­so giv­en by the com­pa­ny when the Guardian con­tact­ed the GCL food di­vi­sion.A spokesman for the food di­vi­sion yes­ter­day con­firmed that Ralph Gopaul was not on the Brazil trip.

List of busi­ness­men on PM's Brazil trip

• Charles Per­cy - En­er­gy Cham­ber.

• Thack­way Dri­ver - En­er­gy Cham­ber.

• Roger Pack­er - Tuck­er.

• Roop Chan Chadeesingh - Na­tion­al. Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

• Clyde Ramkha­lawan - NGC.

• Arnold de Four - NGC.

• Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj - Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion.

• Bri­an Awang - Ex­im­bank.

• Rober­to Pe­on - TSTT.

• Nicholas Galt - Trinidad Sys­tems Ltd.

• Sat­nar­ine Bachew - Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd.

• Ra­mon Leon - IFC.

Nigel Pi­ral­li - Gopaul and Co Ltd.