Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in keep­ing with her Gov­ern­ment's promise to pur­sue those who have raped the trea­sury" pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters have been is­sued to for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Ude­cott, Calder Hart and oth­ers. "Jail ain't nice" she told leg­is­la­tors re­peat­ed­ly yes­ter­day as she looked in the di­rec­tion of San Fer­nan­do East MP Patrick Man­ning. At one point Man­ning at­tempt­ed to re­spond, say­ing, "Ask Bin Ham­mam." Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the rev­e­la­tion dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate on the $54.6 bil­lion na­tion­al bud­get at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain. From the start of her lengthy con­tri­bu­tion, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er was heard telling the PM to "mash them up."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said many promi­nent peo­ple in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty were not jailed for al­leged crim­i­nal of­fences they com­mit­ted for civ­il of­fences. She then re­vealed that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had is­sued the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters "to Calder Hart, with re­spect to Sun­way Com­pa­ny, for the $368 mil­lion con­tract award­ed (by Ude­cott) for the Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­ers." That con­tract was award­ed to the com­pa­ny with no track record and which al­leged­ly had a rel­a­tive of Hart as a di­rec­tor. "The board of Ude­cott, by res­o­lu­tion, has au­tho­rised the com­mence­ment of le­gal ac­tion against Calder Hart for fraud, neg­li­gence, breach of statu­to­ry du­ty," she added to loud desk-thump­ing by Gov­ern­ment MPs. Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that Cana­di­an foren­sic ac­coun­tant, Robert Lindquist, had com­plet­ed his work on the mat­ter "and that re­port has been hand­ed over to the head of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau."

She added: "So we will go on both limbs, on the civ­il rem­e­dy side which we can do and on the crim­i­nal side we will leave it in the hands of the DPP and the po­lice." She said a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter al­so was served on Hart for his role in the award of the con­tract to con­trac­tor Hafeez Kara­math to con­struct the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um. She de­scribed that con­tract as a "cor­rup­tion pack­age." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters had al­so been is­sued to the Ken Ju­lian e-Teck Board and al­so the Petrotrin Board. She in­sist­ed that cit­i­zens of T&T must not abuse the na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny. Ear­li­er, she said she had no re­grets about the de­c­la­ra­tion of a state of emer­gency in T&T. She said the crime rate had been re­duced by 70 per cent since it was de­clared in Au­gust. She said lives were be­ing saved every­day as a di­rect re­sult of the emer­gency.