Richard?Lord

The Op­po­si­tion PNM is in­sist­ing that noth­ing less than a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry must be ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the award and ex­e­cu­tion of Petrotrin's South West Sol­da­do project.

This point was made by St Joseph MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion on the project. It was pre­sent­ed for de­bate by Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon.

The mo­tion called for an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to "al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety" in the project, which al­leged­ly in­volved "the il­le­gal ad­vance pay­ment of US$1.25 mil­lion that was not in ac­cor­dance with the terms and con­di­tions of the con­tract."

The mo­tion al­so claimed "there was a trans­fer of US$750,000 in­to two pri­vate bank ac­counts at Sco­tia­bank, Mar­aval."

Deyals­ingh said the Op­po­si­tion would not be sat­is­fied with a foren­sic au­dit in­to the project "but an in­de­pen­dent au­dit or a full-blown Com­mis­sion of En­quiry."

He said if a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry was held wit­ness­es would be able to give ev­i­dence on is­sues such as:

�2 Who au­tho­rised the pay­ment of US$1.25 mil­lion?

�2 Why did Petrotrin by­pass its own pro­cure­ment rules?

�2 Who au­tho­rised a mo­bil­i­sa­tion fee when the con­tract pro­vid­ed for none?

Deyals­ingh said while the Op­po­si­tion would like the Petrotrin board to be re­moved, that was not ex­pect­ed. He said apart from crime and un­em­ploy­ment, the is­sue of in­sti­tu­tion­al fail­ure was one of the ma­jor prob­lems fac­ing the coun­try.

He said that ob­ser­va­tion was based on re­cent res­ig­na­tions from cer­tain boards across the coun­try.

Deyals­ingh said, "We are see­ing it with res­ig­na­tions from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. No in­sti­tu­tion in T&T is stand­ing tall and proud. None."

Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter and to tak­ing ac­tion against any­one guilty of wrong­do­ing if such rec­om­men­da­tions were made.