Gail Alexan­der

Mad­ness ruled at the for­mer­ly PNM-con­trolled Sport Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Sportt). In­clud­ed in that "mad­ness" is that the com­pa­ny, which ob­tained the con­tract for the con­tro­ver­sial na­tion­al flag at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion of the award from Sportt pri­or to even be­ing rec­om­mend­ed for the job. Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts de­scribed that and oth­er is­sues in Sportt which were out­lined in a Fi­nance Min­istry au­dit.

Roberts added: "Er­rors, omis­sions, im­pro­pri­ety and down­right cor­rupt prac­tices... from the Caribbean Games, which nev­er came off, to the lega­cy flag at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, to the hir­ing of in­terns, the leas­ing of ex­pen­sive SU­Vs, du­pli­ca­tion of du­ties/re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the cre­ation of a ghost roof at the sta­di­um." De­scrib­ing the re­port as "damn­ing," Roberts said he was not call­ing names since "this is all go­ing to a dif­fer­ent place." Au­di­tors have rec­om­mend­ed that all breach­es of good gov­er­nance be fur­ther in­ves­ti­gat­ed for pos­si­ble flout­ing of the law. On the flag, which caused a furore dur­ing the PNM Gov­ern­ment's tenure, Roberts said a Sportt ten­ders com­mit­tee did not ex­ist. But, he added, a May 4, 2009 note to that team rec­om­mend­ed a cer­tain com­pa­ny for the award of the project.

He said the com­pa­ny ac­cept­ed re­ceipt, stat­ing that the con­fir­ma­tion let­ter was dat­ed April 29, 2009–five days be­fore the award of the con­tract was giv­en. "Prophet­ess (Ju­liana) Pe­na would be proud of that com­pa­ny," Roberts quipped. "Clear­ly this sug­gests that the con­fir­ma­tion let­ter of award was is­sued by Sportt pri­or to the com­pa­ny even be­ing rec­om­mend­ed. Amaz­ing!" he added. He said the per­son who signed the let­ter of award had no au­thor­i­ty to bind the com­pa­ny. Roberts said the cho­sen com­pa­ny's bid was based on us­ing 200 cu­bic me­tres of con­crete. He stat­ed that on­ly 30 cu­bic me­tres were used. The es­ti­mat­ed but-size to ac­com­mo­date the con­crete was pro­ject­ed to be 20 feet by 20 feet but this was built ten-by-ten in­stead, he added.

The min­is­ter said the con­tract al­so in­clud­ed dri­ving of six piles to a depth of 40 feet, yet no piles were dri­ven. "No butt! No piles! No Prepa­ra­tion H! Calder Hart was not in this one; this was a ba­by Calder," Roberts quipped. Re­fer­ring to a "ghost roof" sce­nario, Robert said the sta­di­um's roof is 2,055 square me­tres. But Sportt's ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er of projects "pro­duced a note to the non-ex­is­tent ten­ders com­mit­tee, stat­ing the ac­tu­al roof size was 3,147 square me­tres," he added. He said the ad­di­tion­al cost was ap­proved by the Sportt for­mer chairan. "This led the Fi­nance Min­istry's au­di­tors to con­clude this ap­pears to in­di­cate col­lu­sion be­tween the con­trac­tor and the Sportt," Roberts said. He said Sportt had re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for up­grad­ing sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties for the 2009 Caribbean Games to the sum of $55 mil­lion.

"Of the $50 mil­lion of works un­der­tak­en in prepa­ra­tion for the games, some $30 mil­lion were 'award­ed' to con­trac­tors with­out the use of the ten­der­ing process," the min­is­ter told the House. "Of the $30 mil­lion of works done and sup­plies/ser­vices ex­e­cut­ed with­out the use of the ten­der­ing process, $20 mil­lion of those trans­ac­tions were via the use of sin­gle quo­ta­tions," Roberts added. He said Sportt con­duct­ed 129 trans­ac­tions, to­talling $57.3 mil­lion by sin­gle quo­ta­tion. "For the Caribbean Games alone, span­ning mere months, over 379 trans­ac­tions were con­duct­ed by Sportt to the tune of $65.3 mil­lion." he said. He added that of the $55 mil­lion of works done, on­ly $25 mil­lion were award­ed through the ten­der­ing process.

But none of the $25 mil­lion of works was ap­proved by a ten­ders com­mit­tee, Roberts said. He added: "The re­port states no ev­i­dence was avail­able to sug­gest a ten­ders' com­mit­tee ever ex­ist­ed pri­or to March 2010, pri­or to com­mence­ment of the au­dit." He said the PNM ap­pointees at the com­pa­ny had the "au­dac­i­ty to send 62 notes rel­a­tive to the award of those con­tracts to a ghost com­mit­tee." One of the 62 notes pur­port­ed­ly sent to the "ghost ten­ders team", one was "ap­proved" by Sportt's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor. The oth­er 61 were ap­proved by the ex­ec­u­tive by the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, he said.

Roberts said Sportt had a pro­cure­ment spe­cial­ist and con­sul­tant on staff at re­spec­tive salaries of $16,800 and $35,000 month­ly. He al­so said Sportt had re­ceived 37 ap­pli­ca­tions from in­terns in 2009. But the eight who were hired nev­er ap­plied, he said. Roberts said de­spite hav­ing trav­el­ling al­lowances, Sportt's ex­ec­u­tive chair­man and di­rec­tor leased two BMW X5's at a cost of $40,000 month­ly. Look­ing at for­mer PNM leader Patrick Man­ning, he said: "I re­mem­ber the MP for San Fer­nan­do East (Patrick Man­ning) in a dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ty say­ing 'jail ent nice... it ain't nice'."