Gail Alexan­der

As the Gov­ern­ment lob­bies the Pres­i­dent to re­move In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Er­ic St Cyr, the Op­po­si­tion has for­mal­ly called on the com­mis­sion to probe al­leged mis­con­duct on the part of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­gard­ing her stay at a Tu­na­puna house and a $40m NP con­tract. PNM sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds who first raised con­cerns on the is­sue, wrote the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day, pre­sent­ing a pri­ma fa­cie case on the mat­ter. Hinds said is­sues and al­le­ga­tions had been raised in re­spect of the al­leged NP con­tract award in which the ex­ist­ing con­trac­tor had been ter­mi­nat­ed, and the pro­posed new con­trac­tor is al­leged to be the own­er of the Tu­na­puna res­i­dence.

Not­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar oc­cu­pied a Pasea, Tu­na­puna, house af­ter her ap­point­ment to of­fice last May, Hinds said the cir­cum­stances of the sit­u­a­tion raised pri­ma fa­cie rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect Per­sad-Bisses­sar might have com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice. Hinds stat­ed: "I re­fer to your com­mis­sion the en­tire mat­ter touch­ing and con­cern­ing the con­duct of the Prime Min­is­ter as it re­lates to her oc­cu­pa­tion of the res­i­dence and al­so the con­duct of the Prime Min­is­ter and board of NP in re­spect of the prob­a­ble is­suance of the con­tract." Hinds' re­quest fol­lows con­cerns raised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley about the in­tegri­ty of the process re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter's stay at the Tu­na­puna house.

It al­so comes at the same time the Gov­ern­ment has be­gun a lob­by for the re­moval of com­mis­sion chair­man St Cyr, re­gard­ing St Cyr's re­cent state­ment that con­tro­ver­sy over the NP mat­ter would have been avoid­ed if Per­sad-Bisses­sar had stayed at a ho­tel. PP Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er wrote Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards yes­ter­day, call­ing for St Cyr's re­moval, claim­ing St Cyr was bi­ased in the PNM and Row­ley's favour. Warn­er al­so wrote St Cyr di­rect­ly ask­ing him to re­sign. St Cyr, who says he has not thought of re­sign­ing, has said that it could be pos­si­ble that he would re­cuse him­self if the NP is­sue had to be probed by the com­mis­sion.

In his let­ter to the com­mis­sion, Hinds not­ed that he had tried to get an­swers on the NP and house is­sues through ques­tions in the Sen­ate.

But this was fu­tile un­til Tues­day when he said PP Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal ad­mit­ted the Prime Min­is­ter had oc­cu­pied the res­i­dence and that the own­er Ralph Gopaul was a friend of hers. Hinds said Mooni­lal al­so said the Prime Min­is­ter in­curred no ex­pense or cost to be borne by the State re­gard­ing the oc­cu­pan­cy. "I there­fore sur­mise that this use, oc­cu­pa­tion or ben­e­fit was a gift from her friend Ralph Gopaul with­in the mean­ing of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act and if not de­clared may be in vi­o­la­tion of same," he said. Hinds not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter, as Cab­i­net chair­man, would have over­seen the ap­point­ment of an NP board. He said while the Gov­ern­ment had de­nied is­suance of a con­tract to Gopaul, he had "rea­son­able grounds" to be­lieve that giv­en the ter­mi­na­tion of the ex­ist­ing con­trac­tor, that a con­tract had been award­ed to Gopaul or "an en­ti­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with him."

Hinds said a pri­ma fa­cie case had been raised on the above, that the Prime Min­is­ter at a min­i­mum sup­port­ed a de­ci­sion which:

• Af­ford­ed un­due pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to Gopaul; and

• Pro­vid­ed a ben­e­fit to and/or im­prop­er­ly ad­vanced the in­ter­est of the Gopauls and/or their com­pa­ny and re­sult­ed in a fail­ure to ex­er­cise her pub­lic du­ty in a fair, im­par­tial man­ner.

On calls for com­mis­sion chair­man St Cyr's re­moval, Hinds said: "I must ad­mit Dr St Cyr's com­ments were a lit­tle bit ear­ly, but I don't con­sid­er them to be fa­tal to his of­fice or to the com­mis­sion's ca­pac­i­ty to do its work un­der the law. "Call­ing on the Pres­i­dent to re­move Dr St Cyr is an­oth­er ex­am­ple of ex­citabil­i­ty -it's tak­ing things too far," he said. "I don't con­sid­er what Dr St Cyr has said to be fa­tal...He is on­ly one man and he can re­cuse him­self from the com­mis­sion as it con­tin­ues to do its work."