Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Diego Mar­tin West MP Colm Im­bert has filed a mo­tion in Par­lia­ment call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ter­mi­nate all ex­ist­ing con­tracts with cor­rup­tion-taint­ed Cana­di­an firm SNC-Lavalin.His call came five months af­ter the com­pa­ny and 100 of its af­fil­i­ates were banned from bid­ding on con­tracts fund­ed by the World Bank.Im­bert's mo­tion was sched­uled for Fri­day's sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives but was post­poned as de­bate con­tin­ues in­to the 2013-2014 fis­cal bud­get.

In his mo­tion, quot­ed from Or­der Pa­pers in the par­lia­men­tary Web site, Im­bert said the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Cana­di­an Com­mer­cial Cor­po­ra­tion (CCC), signed a con­tract in Feb­ru­ary 2013 with SNC-Lavalin to de­sign a hos­pi­tal in Pe­nal."The CCC has al­so con­firmed that the de­sign con­tract for this hos­pi­tal project was award­ed by Ude­cott to SNC-Lavalin, on the rec­om­men­da­tion of CCC, on a sole se­lec­tive ba­sis with­out any com­pet­i­tive ten­der­ing," Im­bert said.

He not­ed that con­struc­tion of the hos­pi­tal will cost tax­pay­ers $1 bil­lion.Say­ing "SNC-Lavalin is present­ly em­broiled in al­le­ga­tions and find­ings of ir­reg­u­lar pay­ments to pub­lic of­fi­cials, mis­con­duct, cor­rup­tion and bribery in projects in a num­ber of de­vel­op­ing coun­tries," Im­bert called on the Gov­ern­ment to ter­mi­nate all ex­ist­ing con­tracts."Gov­ern­ment should al­so cease and de­sist from en­ter­ing in­to any fu­ture con­trac­tu­al re­la­tion­ships with SNC-Lavalin or any of its af­fil­i­ates," he added.

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed that "pro­cure­ment process for the project as well as fu­ture projects should be sub­ject to open and trans­par­ent com­pet­i­tive ten­der­ing."In a sub­se­quent in­ter­view, Im­bert al­so ques­tioned why the due dili­gence re­view on SNC-Lavalin was tak­ing so long.

"I think they are play­ing games. Some­body with­in the CCC is ob­vi­ous­ly com­pro­mised be­cause why else will they give a banned com­pa­ny the con­tract?" He added, "It is well known that SNC has been banned by the Cana­di­an In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Agency CI­DA and the World Bank."

Im­bert not­ed, "It is very cu­ri­ous that the T&T High Com­mis­sion­er to Cana­da Philip Buxo was a di­rec­tor for SNC-Lavalin and as soon as he was ap­point­ed to Cana­da, SNC gets its con­tract. The whole thing is very strange. I want to know why the Gov­ern­ment doesn't ter­mi­nate this agree­ment."He added that the con­tract did not pro­vide any spe­cial rates to T&T.

"It doesn't ap­pear that we are get­ting any spe­cial deal. We are get­ting it on com­mer­cial terms, there are no con­ces­sion­ary rates, no spe­cial price, and it is done with­out com­pet­i­tive ten­der­ing so there is no prop­er way of es­tab­lish­ing val­ue for mon­ey. It is a dis­grace, and I wish they will get it over with and ter­mi­nate all arrange­ments with that com­pa­ny," Im­bert said.

Mooni­lal: Govt will deal­with it when it aris­es

Con­tact­ed on his cell phone, Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment will deal with the mo­tion when it aris­es."Quite a lot has al­ready been said about the SNC-Lavalin is­sue but we are pre­pared to deal with this mo­tion in great de­tail when it is brought to Par­lia­ment."The min­is­ter, who is in charge of Ude­cott, said a due dili­gence re­view on the com­pa­ny was still on­go­ing.The re­port was ini­tial­ly ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed at the end of Au­gust, but Mooni­lal said the CCC had re­quest­ed a fur­ther two weeks to com­plete its re­view.

He ad­mit­ted that the Gov­ern­ment had grave con­cerns about SNC-Lavalin's track record and cur­rent sta­tus.How­ev­er, he said once the due dili­gence re­view is com­plet­ed, the Gov­ern­ment will make a de­ci­sion on SNC-Lavalin.Last month, pres­i­dent and CEO of the CCC Marc Whit­ting­ton de­nied that the T&T Gov­ern­ment was not get­ting com­pet­i­tive rates in the $2.2 mil­lion hos­pi­tal de­sign con­tract with SNC-Lavalin.

He said the CCC was as­sess­ing SNC's fi­nan­cial, man­age­r­i­al and tech­ni­cal abil­i­ties as well as its Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ca­pa­bil­i­ties to de­ter­mine whether it is el­i­gi­ble for the con­tract. This due dili­gence re­view is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by next week.