Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj has land­ed him­self in a dilem­ma re­gard­ing the award of con­tracts at the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (AATT). The mat­ter is now en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Cor­re­spon­dence ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian which was sent to the Prime Min­is­ter by the AATT chair­man Va­man Ba­j­nath de­tails a list of 'spe­cial re­quests' Ma­haraj had in­struct­ed him to car­ry out. Ma­haraj, the line min­is­ter for the AATT, yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian that he did in fact dis­cuss some of the 'spe­cial re­quests' with Ba­j­nath. At the cen­tre of the ex­pos&ea­cute; are the award of con­tracts and the short-list­ing of peo­ple to be hired for em­ploy­ment at the AATT. The rev­e­la­tion comes on the heels of the min­is­ter's move to have Ba­j­nath's ap­point­ment re­voked fol­low­ing a vote of no-con­fi­dence against him on Oc­to­ber 21. It was in a let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 31 that Ma­haraj in­formed Ba­j­nath a copy of the res­o­lu­tion was sent to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan for di­rec­tion on the mat­ter. But Ba­j­nath, who has tak­en is­sue with the han­dling of the mat­ter, and in at­tempt to clear his name, re­spond­ed to the al­le­ga­tions in a tell-it-all style.

Ba­j­nath chas­tised Ma­haraj for not af­ford­ing him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the 'base­less al­le­ga­tions' be­fore the mat­ter en­gaged the at­ten­tion of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, claim­ing the rift be­tween AATT board mem­bers was due to po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and med­dling. Ba­j­nath stat­ed: "The present wran­gling and dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour of mem­bers of the board is di­rect­ly linked to the car­ry­ing out of the di­rec­tions and de­sires of your of­fice." Re­fer­ring to Sec­tion: 12A (2) of the AATT Act which states: "In the per­for­mance of its func­tions and in the ex­er­cise of its pow­ers, the Au­thor­i­ty shall act in ac­cor­dance with spe­cif­ic or gen­er­al writ­ten di­rec­tions giv­en by the line min­is­ter," Ba­j­nath claimed that he fa­cil­i­tat­ed the min­is­ter's "ex­pressed de­sires" since his ap­point­ment.

Chair­man claimed he ful­filled min­is­ter's 'ex­pressed de­sires'

Dis­miss­ing al­le­ga­tions that he failed to car­ry out in­struc­tions of the line min­is­ter in a time­ly man­ner, Ba­j­nath list­ed sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to the Prime Min­is­ter where he al­leged­ly ful­filled the min­is­ter's 'spe­cial re­quests'.

• Re­quest: Favourable con­sid­er­a­tion for Bridg­com Ltd with re­spect to a three-year con­tract for grass cut­ting of the air­field, main­te­nance of the drains and fence line at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Ac­tion: At a Ju­ly 2011 meet­ing, the board of the AATT award­ed the con­tract to Bridge­com Ltd in the sum of $2,156,189 plus VAT per an­num for three years for the grass cut­ting of the air­field, main­te­nance of the drains and fence line at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

• Re­quest: Favourable con­sid­er­a­tion for at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh of For­tis Cham­bers to re­ceive AATT Orop­une le­gal port­fo­lio.

Ac­tion: At the Sep­tem­ber 2011 board meet­ing, the ap­point­ment of Jagdeo Singh, For­tis Cham­bers to pro­vide pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices in set­tling the le­gal is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with the re­lo­ca­tion of the Orop­une vil­lagers.

• Re­quest: Hu­man Re­sources con­sul­tant to re­main on a month-to-month con­tract.

Ac­tion: Mem­bers were ad­vised at the Au­gust 2011 board meet­ing that the de­ci­sion of the board tak­en to with re­spect to the re­new­al of a one-year con­tract for the hu­man re­source con­sul­tant will re­vert to a month-to-month con­tract on the ba­sis that the po­ten­tial­ly new ap­pointee to the po­si­tion of hu­man re­source man­ag­er pos­sessed the ca­pa­bil­i­ties and ex­pe­ri­ence to ad­dress in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sues.

• Re­quest: Favourable con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to three spe­cif­ic at­tor­neys for the va­cant po­si­tions with­in the AATT Le­gal De­part­ment. Ac­tion: The po­si­tions were pub­licly ad­ver­tised, and the rec­om­mend­ed peo­ple were short­list­ed in prepa­ra­tion for the in­ter­view process.

• Re­quest: Re­moval of board mem­ber Di­ane Hadad as chair­man of the Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee (BDC) and or ter­mi­na­tion de­ci­sion and in­struct­ing man­age­ment to halt ne­go­ti­a­tions with var­i­ous con­ces­sion­ar­ies in the ab­sence of board ap­proval. In ad­di­tion, you ad­vised that ne­go­ti­a­tions must con­tin­ue with po­ten­tial con­ces­sion­ar­ies.

Ac­tion: The BDC was im­me­di­ate­ly dis­band­ed on the ba­sis that the de­ci­sions tak­en with re­spect to the halt­ing of ne­go­ti­a­tions with con­ces­sion­ar­ies were not in the in­ter­est of the au­thor­i­ty nor was it ap­proved by the board. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, while the com­mit­tee was es­tab­lished by the board, no terms of ref­er­ence were doc­u­ment­ed and items dis­cussed over­lapped with the busi­ness of the op­er­a­tions com­mit­tee. Fur­ther­more, ne­go­ti­a­tions with the fol­low­ing con­ces­sion­ar­ies re­sumed with­out de­lay.

Ac­cord­ing to Ba­j­nath, among the re­quests to be filled with the con­ces­sion­ar­ies are:

•T o is­sue a let­ter of com­mit­ment to open one food kiosk at the In­ter­na­tion­al De­par­ture Lounge East and an­oth­er in the In­ter­na­tion­al De­par­ture Lounge West

• To lease 16 square me­ters of space at the south ter­mi­nal for an Au­to­mat­ed Teller Ma­chine (ATM)

• To is­sue a li­cence to place an ATM at the north ter­mi­nal

• To send a sam­ple lease with­out rates

• To lease 172.69 square me­ters of of­fice space at the south ter­mi­nal

• To com­plete ne­go­ti­a­tions with the com­pa­ny when the re­view of rates and charges has been com­plet­ed.

Ba­j­nath al­so dis­re­gard­ed all grounds for mov­ing the mo­tion stat­ing that the al­le­ga­tions were with­out fact and a breach of pro­to­col.

Six against Ba­j­nath on the board

The fall-out be­tween Ma­haraj and Ba­j­nath comes one month af­ter chair­man of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T Clive Spencer was fired. Spencer had claimed that he was giv­en the boot be­cause he re­fused to ad­here to the min­is­ter's di­rec­tives. Sun­day Guardian has been re­li­ably in­formed that board mem­bers-Gary Kalliecha­ran, Suresh Ram­di­al, Emile Bap­tiste, Dyanand Ma­haraj, Ian Gomez and Di­ane Hadad vot­ed in favour of the no-cofi­dence mo­tion against Ba­j­nath.

Cit­ing grounds for the mo­tion, the board mem­bers stat­ed the fol­low­ing rea­sons for re­mov­ing Ba­j­nath:

• Has demon­strat­ed to­tal dis­re­gard for the AATT Act and pro­ce­dures gov­ern­ing the au­thor­i­ty, per­tain­ing to his au­thor­i­ty and de­ci­sions tak­en by the board.

• Fail­ure to call a vote on mo­tions which were pro­posed and sec­ond­ed at the board meet­ing.

• Fail­ure to car­ry out in­struc­tions of the line min­is­ter in a time­ly man­ner.

• On sev­er­al oc­ca­sions dis­play­ing an in­abil­i­ty to con­trol and con­duct board meet­ings in an or­der­ly man­ner

•Chair­man has on oc­ca­sions dis­re­gard­ed re­quests by mem­bers of the board to have em­ploy­ees of AATT leave the board­room for pri­vate dis­cus­sion.

Deputy chair­man al­so un­der fire

The saga does not end there though, as Ma­haraj is al­so re­port­ed­ly butting heads with the deputy chair­man of AATT Fe­lix Her­nan­dez. This, af­ter Ma­haraj claimed that a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion was al­so moved against Her­nan­dez on Oc­to­ber 21. Ma­haraj al­so re­ferred Her­nan­dez's mat­ter to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.As to which mem­bers moved the mo­tion re­mains an is­sue of con­tention.

Six board mem­bers, Ma­haraj stat­ed, gave the fol­low­ing rea­sons for their de­ci­sion:

• Has demon­strat­ed a fail­ure to un­der­stand and com­ply with the AATT Act and pro­ce­dures gov­ern­ing the AATT

• Uni­lat­er­al­ly chang­ing law­ful de­ci­sions tak­en by the board

• Has on oc­ca­sions dis­played abu­sive be­hav­iour to­wards mem­bers of the board and em­ploy­ees

• Al­low mis­in­for­ma­tion to be pre­sent­ed to the board, de­spite ob­jec­tion from board mem­bers.

• On sev­er­al oc­ca­sions dis­play­ing in­abil­i­ty to sup­port chair­man in con­duct­ing meet­ings in an or­der­ly man­ner

• Dis­play­ing poor judge­ment with lit­tle re­gard for fair and nat­ur­al jus­tice.

Ve­he­ment­ly deny­ing that the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers vot­ed in favour of the mo­tion, Her­nan­dez re­spond­ed to Ma­haraj stat­ing: "I was present and at­tend­ed the month­ly statu­to­ry meet­ing of AATT on Oc­to­ber 21. At that meet­ing no res­o­lu­tion was tabled or vot­ed up­on in terms of the en­clo­sure in your un­der ref­er­ence. One of the mem­bers of the board moved a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in me as deputy chair­man. The mo­tion was sec­ond­ed. No no­tice was giv­en of this res­o­lu­tion nor was any de­tails sup­plied. Some dis­cus­sion took place on the res­o­lu­tion but it was nev­er put to vote and there­fore not passed." Her­nan­dez who is weigh­ing his le­gal op­tions has deemed the al­le­ga­tions as 'vague' and 'ma­li­cious', in­sist­ing that he act­ed in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the AATT Act.

Trans­port Min­is­ter re­sponds to al­le­ga­tions

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj at­tempt­ed to down­play the rift at the AATT in­sist­ing that the "board is very much in place" and Ba­j­nath re­mains the chair­man. Pressed fur­ther as to why he opt­ed to re­fer the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against Ba­j­nath and Her­nan­dez to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Ma­haraj said: "No, no, it is not true I have not re­ferred the mat­ter to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al," Ma­haraj said. How­ev­er, when told that the Sun­day Guardian was in pos­ses­sion of the cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed Oc­to­ber 31, that stat­ed the mat­ter was en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Ma­haraj then replied: "I have to see what you have be­fore you." On the is­sue of giv­ing di­rec­tives to Ba­j­nath for the grant­i­ng of 'spe­cial re­quests' in re­la­tion to the main­te­nance of the grass and fence line at the air­port, Ma­haraj ex­plained: "I have a let­ter from Bridge­com Ltd stat­ing that they have some con­cerns with the ten­der­ing process. In terms of Mr Ba­j­nath, I spoke to him iden­ti­fy­ing the con­cern of this per­son who ten­dered and that he should re­view the ten­der process if in­deed the al­le­ga­tions made by Bridg­com is cor­rect. "Sub­se­quent­ly, the board in­di­cat­ed that they did in­deed find out that there were some prob­lems with the eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria of that par­tic­u­lar con­tract and they de­lib­er­at­ed up­on it and arised at the low­est bid­der."

Ad­mit­ting that at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh of For­tis Cham­bers has been re­tained to rep­re­sent the in­ter­est of AATT re­gard­ing the re­lo­ca­tion of farm­ers in Or­poune Ma­haraj said: "There was is­sue re­gard­ing the brief from the pre­vi­ous at­tor­ney amount­ing to $1.8 mil­lion or $2 mil­lion dol­lars. It was felt that that price was ex­cep­tion­al­ly high for the brief. I asked them to look around for oth­er at­tor­neys and my ex­pe­ri­ence with Mr Singh is that he is rea­son­able; we are en­sur­ing that we get val­ue for mon­ey and not ex­or­bi­tant le­gal fees." The min­is­ter, how­ev­er, was obliv­i­ous on the is­sue with the hu­man re­source con­sul­tant who has been hired on a month-to-month con­tract. As to whether he re­quest­ed for three 'spe­cif­ic' at­tor­neys to fill the va­can­cies in the le­gal de­part­ment, Ma­haraj ex­plained: "Since I came in­to of­fice I have been get­ting re­quest for jobs and so on. What I do is that I take the re­sumes and fil­ter them out to the var­i­ous de­part­ments and ask if they can con­sid­er them. As far as I know, the AATT has not met in a num­ber of months to fill any po­si­tions." The min­is­ter, how­ev­er, de­nied that he re­quest­ed the re­moval of the BDC chair­man. "On­ly re­cent­ly, I was in To­ba­go with Ms Hadad; we have a good re­la­tion­ship. This is­sue with the BDC is one that trou­bled Mr Ba­j­nath be­cause he felt it was im­ped­ing some of the work he want­ed to do in re­gard to the con­ces­sion­ar­ies. He iden­ti­fied that ne­go­ti­a­tions had halt­ed be­cause of the BDC.

"Those de­tails with the con­ces­sion­ar­ies I would not know," Ma­haraj stat­ed. At­tempts to con­tact man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Bridg­com Ltd Narindra Ram­sub­hag proved fu­tile.

PS sends le­gal let­ter to min­is­ter

The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (PS) in the Min­istry of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Her­mia Tyson-Cuffie is de­mand­ing an apol­o­gy from Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj in re­la­tion to claims that she played a role in the al­leged "slush fund" set up un­der the Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Schol­ar­ship Fi­nan­cial As­sis­tance Pro­gramme. Through her at­tor­neys Alexan­der, Je­re­mie and Com­pa­ny, Tyson-Cuffie, who was re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed to the rank of PS, has is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Ma­haraj re­gard­ing state­ments he al­leged­ly hurled at her out­side the of­fice of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion on Oc­to­ber 25. Tyson-Cufffie, who has been em­ployed in the pub­lic ser­vice for the last 36 years, is claim­ing that the state­ments iden­ti­fied her as a "play­er" in the al­leged slush fund at the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs.

In her claim for dam­ages, the PS said the state­ments al­so im­put­ed that dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2003 to 2007, when she held the po­si­tion of deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary she act­ed in a racist man­ner, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against peo­ple of East In­di­an de­scent, favoured and fa­cil­i­tat­ed mem­bers of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and man­aged the Min­istry's funds in such a man­ner that they were dis­si­pat­ed and could not prop­er­ly be ac­count­ed for. The state­ments, Tyson-Cuffie said, could be in­ter­pret­ed as she com­mit­ted a crim­i­nal of­fence in pub­lic of­fice un­der the rel­e­vant statutes of the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act and the In­tegri­ty and Pub­lic Life Act. The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary fur­ther con­tent­ed that the fund fell un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Gen­der Af­fairs and was man­aged by a com­mit­tee of which she was nev­er a mem­ber of as deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, since the in­cep­tion of the pro­gramme in 2003. All rec­om­men­da­tions, Tyson-Cuffie claimed, were ap­proved by the rel­e­vant min­is­ter and pay­ments were au­tho­rised by the then PS for the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs.

Sub­stan­ti­at­ing her claim, Tyson-Cuffie said no where in the al­leged Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion re­port makes men­tion of her name or any re­spon­si­bil­i­ty at­tached to the of­fice of the deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary that she for­mer­ly held.