Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Al­le­ga­tions of de­mands for sex­u­al favours have sur­faced over a pro­posed $20 mil­lion-dol­lar deal that led to the sud­den res­ig­na­tion of a se­nior ex­ec­u­tive at the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA). Provoca­tive com­ments of: "Work the man," "You are not here for your good looks," and "Take one for the boys," Sun­day Guardian learned, are what re­port­ed­ly led to the flee­ing of the ex­ec­u­tive, who was ex­pect­ed to play a key role in turn­ing around the cash-strapped state en­ter­prise.

The shock­ing in­ci­dent is the lat­est scan­dal to sur­face from op­er­a­tions at the CDA, which in re­cent weeks has led to an ex­o­dus and ques­tion­able fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions. The in­ci­dent, which was kept hush-hush for sev­er­al months, took place in Sep­tem­ber at a well-known Ch­aguara­mas restau­rant in the pres­ence of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of in­ter­na­tion­al pre­mier sig­na­ture de­sign­er Greg Nor­man Golf Course De­sign (GNGCD), AE­COM Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices, and sev­er­al board mem­bers and of­fi­cials of CDA.

Of­fi­cial doc­u­ments ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian re­vealed that the board agreed on Sep­tem­ber 13 to start ne­go­ti­a­tions with GNGCD for the de­vel­op­ment and op­er­a­tion of an 18-hole world-class golf re­sort at Tuck­er Val­ley, Ch­aguara­mas. The in­ter­na­tion­al firm, which has a track record of de­sign­ing and de­vel­op­ing over 72 golf cours­es world­wide, was in­vit­ed to T&T on Sep­tem­ber 26 to sub­mit a pro­pos­al for the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar project.

List­ed in the pro­gramme sum­ma­ry in a copy of the pro­pos­al sub­mit­ted to CDA and ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian:

•De­vel­op a world-class golf course

•Pre­serve and en­hance a pris­tine en­vi­ron­ment

•Pro­vide com­plete and free ac­cess to the com­mu­ni­ty

•Cre­ate an as­set of in­ter­na­tion­al im­por­tance for T&T

•Add an­oth­er great di­men­sion to the tourist ex­pe­ri­ence of T&T

•Cre­ate ad­di­tion­al recre­ation­al/ed­u­ca­tion­al/cul­tur­al as­set for the com­mu­ni­ty

•Uni­fied vi­sion

The golf course forms part of the CDA's de­vel­op­men­tal plan for the west­ern penin­su­la.

In­ap­pro­pri­ate con­duct stuns of­fi­cials

But the Sun­day Guardian learned the turn of events that took place af­ter the pre­sen­ta­tion left many stunned and has al­so played a part in the con­tentious sit­u­a­tion fac­ing the board at this time. Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian un­der strict anonymi­ty, a mem­ber of the high-pow­ered team who was present dur­ing the in­ci­dent re­called: "The en­tire in­ci­dent was so dis­re­spect­ful that no one want­ed to talk about what hap­pened, be­cause every­one was afraid of the con­se­quences. What hap­pened that night was very em­bar­rass­ing and left many peo­ple shocked. Many of us could not be­lieve what we were see­ing or hear­ing.

"At one point the sit­u­a­tion es­ca­lat­ed to a point where CDA of­fi­cials had to in­ter­vene to stop their own ex­ec­u­tive from be­ing sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed. Even staff at the restau­rant was shocked at what was tak­ing place, but every­body chose to stay qui­et be­cause of reper­cus­sions. "It is on­ly now things are start­ing to un­rav­el, but the CDA is in a to­tal mess."

The Sun­day Guardian learned that the day af­ter the ex­ec­u­tive sub­mit­ted her res­ig­na­tion, the board sent a let­ter to CDA chair­man Dan­ny Solomon re­quest­ing an ur­gent meet­ing to dis­cuss the event. Sev­er­al board mem­bers con­firmed to Sun­day Guardian that a meet­ing was called to dis­cuss the in­ci­dent but re­fused to elab­o­rate on the de­tails of the mat­ter.

The Sep­tem­ber 29 let­ter ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian said: "This meet­ing has be­come nec­es­sary in light of cer­tain in­ci­dents that took place at a restau­rant (name called) on Sep­tem­ber 26. The events that took place on that said night have raised con­cerns among a range of per­sons in­clud­ing some of our stake­hold­ers. We be­lieve that it is pos­si­ble that there may be some neg­a­tive con­se­quences and im­pli­ca­tions at­tached to this in­ci­dent if it is not dealt with ex­pe­di­tious­ly."

How­ev­er, the Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands the meet­ing nev­er took place. A se­nior man­ag­er at the CDA, who al­so con­firmed the in­ci­dent, added: "Imag­ine, a sit­u­a­tion like this oc­curred and the meet­ing was can­celled. "This en­tire sit­u­a­tion was brought to the at­ten­tion of the plan­ning min­is­ter and every­one is just turn­ing a blind eye to what is tak­ing place.

"It is the hands-off ap­proach that has caused the fric­tion on the board. Each time an ur­gent is­sue is ex­pect­ed to be dealt with at a board meet­ing, it is can­celled at the last minute for some rea­son. "It is time peo­ple are held ac­count­able for their ac­tions, oth­er­wise very soon all that would be left at CDA is an emp­ty shell be­cause of all that is tak­ing place."

CDA board meet­ing can­celled again

Most re­cent­ly, it was on­ly last Mon­day that board mem­bers were in­formed that its meet­ing sched­uled to be held on Ju­ly 25 had been can­celled, ow­ing to re­cent Sun­day Guardian re­ports. They were told in an e-mail: "Pur­suant to the chair­man's di­rec­tive, please be in­formed that due to the news­pa­per ar­ti­cle(s) ap­pear­ing in the news­pa­pers over the week­end as it re­lates to the busi­ness of CDA, please note that the 381st board meet­ing orig­i­nal­ly card­ed for Thurs­day 25th Ju­ly 2012 is be­ing post­poned to a date to be re-sched­uled. It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that the re-sched­ul­ing of this meet­ing will take place with­in the next 14 days or so and you will be in­formed ac­cord­ing­ly."

The board was ex­pect­ed to meet to dis­cuss who sanc­tioned the ac­cep­tance of a $2.4 mil­lion cheque from a po­ten­tial client as a down­pay­ment for a lease agree­ment for prop­er­ties at Sec­ond Av­enue South, Ch­aguara­mas. Fi­nan­cial state­ments in the CDA's Man­age­ment Ac­count Re­port stat­ed the re­cur­rent bank bal­ance as at May 31 showed a pos­i­tive bal­ance of $1.9 mil­lion, main­ly at­trib­uted to the ad­vance pre­mi­um pay­ment.

Copies of the 367th board min­utes stat­ed the board took a de­ci­sion to grant a 30-year lease to EOG Re­sources Trinidad Ltd (EOG). How­ev­er, the down­pay­ment was ac­cept­ed from a third-par­ty po­ten­tial client even as ne­go­ti­a­tions over the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar lease dis­pute are on­go­ing be­tween CDA and EOG.

The ne­go­ti­a­tions were con­firmed in an e-mail sent to the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day by com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist K Leonard of EOG In­ter­na­tion­al in Hous­ton, Texas. The e-mail stat­ed: "EOG Re­sources Trinidad Ltd is cur­rent­ly in­volved in ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty re­lat­ed to the lease of the area which it oc­cu­pies as a shore base that serves its off­shore op­er­a­tions."

A se­nior of­fi­cial at the CDA com­ment­ed: "The prob­lem fac­ing CDA is there are too many un­re­solved is­sues. We have in­voic­es be­ing sub­mit­ted be­fore the board even gives ap­proval for the ser­vice, and in­stead of solv­ing the prob­lems, at­tempts are be­ing made to cov­er up things. "We are see­ing a clear abuse of pow­er and a di­rect vi­o­la­tion of board de­ci­sions, and noth­ing is be­ing done. CDA would nev­er be able to be­come self-sus­tain­able if busi­ness con­tin­ues to be con­duct­ed the way it is be­ing han­dled.

CDA mum on is­sues

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, CDA?chair­man Dan­ny Solomon re­ferred all ques­tions to com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist Pe­ter Camp­bell. How­ev­er, when the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Camp­bell for a re­sponse on the al­leged claims and what led to the res­ig­na­tion of the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive, he on­ly said:?"We would re­spond when the time is right."?