Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert is set to probe why $239 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment to­wards the Cou­va Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal when the project was be­ing ful­ly fund­ed by the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment.

He raised the is­sue yes­ter­day dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing on the ex­pen­di­ture of the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment held at the Par­lia­ment.

Im­bert said it was his un­der­stand­ing that the project was fi­nanced through a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment loan fa­cil­i­ty with the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment and there­fore, nor­mal­ly, there was no oblig­a­tion for the T&T Gov­ern­ment to fi­nance the con­struc­tion of the hos­pi­tal.

The lender is the Ex­port Im­port Bank of Chi­na on be­half of Chi­na. The loan ma­tures in 20 years.

Im­bert was re­spond­ing to ques­tions raised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. But in try­ing to find out why no al­lo­ca­tion was made to­wards the hos­pi­tal in 2016, she found her­self be­ing cross-ques­tioned by Im­bert.

On Au­gust 14, Per­sad-Bisses­sar "opened" the hos­pi­tal; how­ev­er, it has since re­mained closed to the pub­lic.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said an al­lo­ca­tion of $130 mil­lion was made in 2014, an es­ti­mate of $140 mil­lion in 2015 with a re­vised al­lo­ca­tion of $109 mil­lion, and then "noth­ing" in 2016 for the hos­pi­tal.

She said, "No al­lo­ca­tion is be­ing made in 2016 and I am ask­ing why. Is it that the hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion has been com­plete?

Im­bert said, "Well, you opened it." Per­sad-Bisses­sar then said she was ask­ing a ques­tion and that he was now in charge.

Af­ter much crosstalk, he said it was Per­sad-Bisses­sar who was the prime min­is­ter at the time who pro­mot­ed the project and se­cured fi­nanc­ing from the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment.

"She cut the rib­bon and opened the hos­pi­tal with great fan­fare just be­fore the elec­tion. So, it's just wrong for the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to say or pre­tend that she does not know. This project, if you have been pay­ing at­ten­tion, has been trans­ferred to the Min­istry of Health and I think we now need to in­ves­ti­gate this since this was sup­posed to be ful­ly fund­ed by the Chi­nese. We need to know why the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go was spend­ing mon­ey on this project and I can as­sure you that there will be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

He said too that he was shocked that Per­sad-Bisses­sar would ask if con­struc­tion was com­plet­ed on the hos­pi­tal.

"I as­sure this Par­lia­ment that we will find out whether that build­ing was com­plete or not. We will ad­vise the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion through the medi­um of this Par­lia­ment," Im­bert said.

More in­fo

Con­tact­ed af­ter Par­lia­ment, Im­bert said he al­so in­tend­ed to look at the 2013 ex­pen­di­ture to see if any mon­ey was al­lo­cat­ed to­wards the project.

He said via text, "This is a very ex­pen­sive project, at $1.5 bil­lion where the con­struc­tion cost was $1 bil­lion, and an­oth­er $500 mil­lion was for fees, etc.

"That is an un­usu­al­ly high amount for non-con­struc­tion costs, which are usu­al­ly a max­i­mum of 20 per cent of the con­struc­tion cost for a spe­cialised project."

Ac­cord­ing to a June 1, 2013, ar­ti­cle on news.gov.tt, the es­ti­mat­ed cost of con­struc­tion of the chil­dren's hos­pi­tal was $975 mil­lion.

The ar­ti­cle said fund­ing for the in­sti­tu­tion was through a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ment with Chi­na.

It said the hos­pi­tal will stand on a 60-acre site on lands from the for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Ltd.

How­ev­er, by June 25, 2013, it was an­nounced by for­mer health min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan that Cab­i­net had ap­proved $1.521 bil­lion for the project.

T&T Guardian files showed:

�2 pre-con­struc­tion work was es­ti­mat­ed at $53.1 mil­lion for ac­cess roads, bridge, works, place­ment of elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter lines and nat­ur­al gas lines;

�2 con­struc­tion and fit-out works were set at $1.3 bil­lion for de­sign, con­struc­tion and fit-out ex­ter­nal works, land­scap­ing and han­dover; and

�2 works to com­ple­tion were put at $464.7 mil­lion for project de­vel­op­ment, con­sul­tan­cy, du­ties, tax­es, site de­vel­op­ment, project man­age­ment, fees and mis­cel­la­neous ex­pens­es, in­clu­sive of se­cu­ri­ty, in­sur­ances and util­i­ties.

Khan had said then: "The to­tal cost of the project is es­ti­mat­ed at $1.520,924, 891.98. In this con­nec­tion, Cab­i­net has ap­proved a bud­get of $1.521 bil­lion."