Ken Ali

For­mer Sport Min­is­ter Gary Hunt last night ex­pressed sur­prise at the dis­clo­sures with re­spect to the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (Sportt). And for­mer ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dar­ren Mil­lien in­sist­ed that the com­pa­ny played by the rules. Hunt, who said he hadn't heard the speech of his suc­ces­sor Anil Roberts, said the board of di­rec­tors would have been guid­ed by the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment.

"The board was there to set pol­i­cy and guide­lines," he stat­ed, adding that there were ap­pro­pri­ate ten­der­ing pro­ce­dures. "The ten­ders com­mit­tee would have made its rec­om­men­da­tions," he added, in in­sist­ing that there were no ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the op­er­a­tion of the State-owned com­pa­ny. He said the ten­der­ing sys­tem was in­her­it­ed form the pre­vi­ous board of di­rec­tors. He said that Sportt's fi­nan­cial re­ports were sub­mit­ted to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

Mil­lien said there was a ten­ders com­mit­tee, head­ed by at­tor­ney Ele­na Arau­jo, which met strict guide­lines of the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board.

The ten­ders sys­tem met re­quired stip­u­la­tions, he in­sist­ed. He al­so dis­put­ed Min­is­ter Anil Roberts' al­le­ga­tions with re­spect to the con­tro­ver­sial $2 mil­lion na­tion­al flag and the em­ploy­ment of the in­terns. He promised a full re­sponse af­ter study­ing Roberts' par­lia­men­tary state­ment.