Fol­low­ing is the ex­cerpt from the Hansard in which Oropouche East MP Roodal Mooni­lal linked Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to a pur­port­ed fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion in­volv­ing A&V Drilling. The al­le­ga­tion was made dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the Bud­get de­bate on Tues­day night.

But an­oth­er ma­jor mat­ter that emerged is this fa­mous or in­fa­mous AV Drilling. AV Drilling and that cri­sis that we faced there is not delinked from the cri­sis at Petrotrin. Con­nect the dots; $100 mil­lion, fake oil, sud­den­ly re­fin­ery closed—on­ly re­fin­ery clos­ing. Then “mind change”, en­tire Petrotrin clos­ing, all work­ers must go. “AV Drilling mat­ter” is the sub­ject be­fore a DPP and, we be­lieve, the po­lice. Records, doc­u­ments, wit­ness or work­ers’ state­ments are all with Petrotrin. It must be with Petrotrin. Cab­i­nets have to move; “dey” clos­ing down, they have to se­cure. What about moth­balling? We heard about moth­balling. So when they take the de­ci­sion on Petrotrin they came to this House, and every time we asked, “dey say dat is Petrotrin busi­ness, dat is de board. Dat is not de Gov­ern­ment, yuh know. Petrotrin board do­ing dat.” When Petrotrin’s board goes to the In­dus­tri­al Court, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al “say, ‘I want to be in dat too’”. All of a sud­den is not “de” board. He want to be in “dat” too. He want­ed to get lo­cus. But he is a lo­cus in that mat­ter—do not be­long there.

So, Madam Speak­er, AV Drilling. A com­pa­ny linked to AV Drilling in South Trinidad de­clares bank­rupt­cy and “close down”—An­drew Jokhan. You all know that.

Com­pa­ny closed down, AV Drilling in trou­ble, Prime Min­is­ter de­clared that the prin­ci­pal there is his best friend and so on, and that is fine, no prob­lem. We all have best friends. Petrotrin now, from re­struc­tur­ing in­to busi­ness units, closed down.

Madam Speak­er, when you have sev­er­ance pay for peo­ple at Petrotrin and they are owed what could be some dol­lars, you think any­one of them is go­ing be­fore a court to speak against Petrotrin in that mat­ter with AV Drilling? Wit­ness is gone, doc­u­ments—when you are clos­ing down, of­fices do not stay the same, it is not like peo­ple dis­ap­pear from the of­fice. You move files, you move fur­ni­ture, you get this out, you get that out. I mean, it is a com­plete haul­ing of all things, files have to go, go miss­ing.

And, Madam Speak­er, I have al­ways been ques­tion­ing this mat­ter as to why we will go in that di­rec­tion with AV Drilling? But, you see, we made the con­nec­tions be­tween AV Drilling and an­oth­er com­pa­ny in south that went in­to bank­rupt­cy. We made the con­nec­tion be­tween AV Drilling and, you know, two per­sons have dis­ap­peared from the scene over that cri­sis, that mat­ter, one is ac­tu­al­ly a for­mer Sen­a­tor. Every­body for­got that there was a Sen­a­tor who proud­ly rep­re­sent­ed the Gov­ern­ment, and then dis­ap­peared in the af­ter­math of the rev­e­la­tion by the Mem­ber for Siparia. But some­body else dis­ap­peared, and every­thing I find—the Mem­ber for Siparia faced a can­di­date on two oc­ca­sions in Siparia. He dis­ap­peared too, not on the night of the elec­tion de­feat, but he dis­ap­peared as well from the scene, one by the name of Vidya De­ok­iesingh. I could call his name, he is not a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. He dis­ap­peared from the scene, and nowhere he could be found, this man. He was re­spon­si­ble for all the charts, and do­ing this, and for putting up the da­ta and so on.

So Madam Speak­er, clear­ly, if you have an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the prin­ci­pals of AV Drilling will be cleared, com­pa­nies as­so­ci­at­ed with them. You know, I call on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Mem­ber for San Fer­nan­do West. As I said, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, in your ab­sence there is some­thing small about you to ad­mire, and that is this “fol­low the mon­ey” busi­ness, and I had nev­er looked at the world like that but I now do it.

So in AV Drilling, linked to com­pa­ny in south, bank­rupt­cy; linked to two peo­ple, one in the Sen­ate, gone; em­ploy­ee of Petrotrin dis­ap­pears. Now, he prob­a­bly has sev­er­ance pay to get too. He was an em­ploy­ee of Petrotrin, can­not be found. But you know what is amaz­ing, Madam Speak­er? There are al­so cheques paid to an­oth­er in­di­vid­ual, and I can call the name as well be­cause the per­son is not in the House or any­thing. There are strange cheques paid to an in­di­vid­ual off an ac­count of AV Drilling. And I will not dis­play, Madam Speak­er, so you do not have to wor­ry about that.

But, Madam Speak­er, at or around the same time of 22 June, 2017 and 21 June, 2017—so let us get it, 21st June and 22nd June, cheque from AV Drilling made out to one Per­sad Ro­hit. Cheque from Jokhan Gen­er­al Con­trac­tors the day af­ter. The first cheque $1.5 mil­lion. Now, this is an in­di­vid­ual, eh. This is not an or­ga­ni­za­tion or a busi­ness, this is a hu­man be­ing; $1.5 mil­lion from AV Drilling.

Next day, same Per­sad Ro­hit, $2.69 mil­lion from Jokhan Con­struc­tion. What is the link be­tween Per­sad Ro­hit, AV Drilling, Jokhan and huge amounts of mon­eys, and we can say here, $4 mil­lion over two days by way of cheques. De­ok­iesingh has gone, but you see, Madam Speak­er, one day, al­most I think in a hu­mor­ous way, the Mem­ber for Port of Spain North/St. Ann’s West, my very dear friend from Port of Spain North/St. Ann’s West—now Min­is­ter of some­thing, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty—he jok­ing­ly said to me that he un­der­stood I was go­ing to Mi­a­mi a lot and the Amer­i­cans he said, or some­body was in­ter­est­ed in my trav­el. So to­day I want to ex­plain to him the na­ture of my trav­el.

You see, Madam Speak­er, I did jour­ney on a few oc­ca­sions be­cause I had wind of some­thing. And I had in­for­ma­tion that point­ed me to a bank in Flori­da, C&C In­ter­na­tion­al Trad­ing, Re­gions Bank, ac­count num­ber: 0229459435; ABA:062005690; swift code: UPN­BUS44MIA; 8200 North West 36th St., Do­ral, Flori­da, 33166—the bank.

Madam Speak­er, this bank has doc­u­ments at the bank to a ben­e­fi­cia­ry ac­count num­ber, IBAN, for­eign, with a num­ber 114515. No pur­pose of funds, so it is a trans­fer doc­u­ment ben­e­fi­cia­ry re­cip­i­ents, no pur­pose of funds, but ad­di­tion­al in­struc­tions for at­ten­tion. There are two names here, one is Vidya De­ok­iesingh and a bank in Flori­da. Now, what would this Petrotrin em­ploy­ee be do­ing with bank­ing busi­ness in Flori­da? What?

The sec­ond name I can­not call in the Par­lia­ment. I can­not. The sec­ond name I can­not call. But you see, Madam Speak­er, I can­not call the sec­ond name, but I asked a week or two ago, I asked the Mem­ber for Diego Mar­tin West whether he had any in­ter­est in AV Drilling and he want­ed to fight me. [Desk thump­ing] He said, “Come out­side on the pave­ment”. To­day, I tell him, come in­side in the House. [Desk thump­ing]

Madam Speak­er, Vidya De­ok­iesingh and an­oth­er name which I can­not call, is here on a piece of pa­per be­fore me with a ben­e­fi­cia­ry ac­count, For­mu­la One Trad­ing. Madam Speak­er, all I am ask­ing to Vidya De­ok­iesingh and an­oth­er un­named per­son is, “What busi­ness did you have with Vidya De­ok­iesingh”?

Mr. Al-Rawi: I am ter­ri­bly sor­ry to in­ter­rupt.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Is there a Stand­ing Or­der of rel­e­vance?

Mr. Al-Rawi: 48(6).

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: 48(6).

Mr. Al-Rawi: You see, Madam Speak­er, if you would con­sid­er it, if you wish me

to elu­ci­date what I am re­fer­ring to, I will be hap­py to, but I do not want to of­fend

you. May I?

Madam Speak­er: You may.

Mr. Al-Rawi: Madam Speak­er, my learned friend is go­ing down a road of im­put­ing an im­prop­er mo­tive be­cause he has linked square­ly, and this is skirt­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing own­er­ship for a very se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion. It is why we have said on re­peat­ed oc­ca­sions, say what you have to say and own it so that, at least, the oth­er ex­er­cise of priv­i­lege may be lev­elled equal­ly be­cause it is ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous to raise al­le­ga­tions of this kind and not have it clear, but rather have im­pu­ta­tion of the type that our Stand­ing Or­ders of­fend. So it is ei­ther my friend, the hon. Mem­ber says what he has to say so that we may ex­er­cise full priv­i­lege against him or he with­draws the en­tire ar­gu­ment. [Crosstalk]

Madam Speak­er: Hon. Mem­ber for Oropouche East.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Yes, Ma’am.

Madam Speak­er: I rule in favour of the ob­jec­tion un­der the Stand­ing Or­ders. So it is ei­ther you with­draw or you say clear­ly what you wish to say. Okay. [Desk thump­ing]

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I am di­rect­ed by you and I re­ceive the good ad­vice from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, I will say what I will like to say and I will like to take own­er­ship of it and then ex­pose my­self to priv­i­lege. [Desk thump­ing]

Let me say, be­cause my words will now be­come some­thing more im­por­tant, that I have in my po­si­tion what ap­pears to be bank­ing in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing a ben­e­fi­cia­ry ac­count in which it says, “ad­di­tion­al in­struc­tions, at­ten­tion”. I have said that there are two names there, I called one. I am say­ing—

Madam Speak­er: Your orig­i­nal time is now spent. You are en­ti­tled to 10 more min­utes.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: I think I will need a next minute, Ma’am. I think I will take the 10.

Madam Speak­er: You have 10 min­utes, I gave you some in­jury time al­ready.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Sure.

Madam Speak­er: So you have 10 min­utes to com­plete your con­tri­bu­tion.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Thank you. So, Madam Speak­er, let me just get my train of thought clear that I am ask­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, in­di­cat­ing I have a doc­u­ment here. This doc­u­ment, Madam Speak­er, sug­gests that there are some bank­ing trans­ac­tions and in­for­ma­tion in­volv­ing Mr. Vidya De­ok­iesingh or one Vidya De­ok­iesingh. There is no Mr. or Mrs. there, but Vidya De­ok­iesingh, and an­oth­er name of a Mem­ber of the House. Would you wish me to call that name?

Mr. Al-Rawi: Madam Speak­er, in ref­er­ence to the Stand­ing Or­der raised, I would al­so like the hon. Mem­ber to con­firm what he said ear­li­er, that he went to Mi­a­mi and ob­tained this in­for­ma­tion him­self, be­cause there is a very dif­fer­ent line that the hon. Mem­ber is tak­ing right now. This re­lates to the im­pu­ta­tion—[Crosstalk] un­der 48(6), and it is for your con­sid­er­a­tion, Madam Speak­er, be­cause to ex­er­cise— [Crosstalk]

Madam Speak­er: Or­der.

Mr. Al-Rawi:—to ex­er­cise these priv­i­leges which are the rem­e­dy to what a Mem­ber may do, then it must be clear that the Mem­ber has said so, and I would like him to con­firm that he went to a bank in Mi­a­mi, he ob­tained this in­for­ma­tion. [Crosstalk]

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber for Na­pari­ma, no­body in here is God. Okay?— in­clud­ing you. I am on my legs. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, I be­lieve that the Hansard would have al­ready tak­en what the Mem­ber said. Okay? And I re­call the Mem­ber say­ing that he is tak­ing own­er­ship for what he is about to say, and he has al­ready said cer­tain things that Hansard would have record­ed.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, it can­not be an­oth­er point of or­der. But, Madam Speak­er, I will nev­er fin­ish.

Hon. Mem­ber: You sit down.

Mr. Hinds: Madam Speak­er, in re­spect of the very Stand­ing Or­der, should not the

Mem­ber tell us the date of that doc­u­ment at the very least?

Dr. Tewarie: He did al­ready.

Hon. Mem­ber: He nev­er did.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er—

Madam Speak­er: In terms of this, the Mem­ber, un­less it is Hansard, he is not bound to tell us the date. He has said cer­tain things which is on record, he ei­ther pro­ceeds or he with­draws. He has said he is tak­ing own­er­ship. [Desk thump­ing]

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I will pro­ceed, and I am pro­ceed­ing to state, I do not have to re­state what I said, the Hansard is there. I would like to say that all that is re­quired is an ex­pla­na­tion that this, what I have in my pos­ses­sion, is ei­ther true or it is not true. And if is not true, then it means that there is an­oth­er sto­ry. If it is true, it is a sto­ry. I have brought to the House, a doc­u­ment which I can­not ex­hib­it which I have read from as the best I could, and I leave the mat­ter there. I have no in­ter­est in go­ing fur­ther with that mat­ter.

But what I will say, Madam Speak­er, is that we are very con­cerned—[In­ter­rup­tion] but I read all the bank­ing in­for­ma­tion al­ready, what else you need? I mean, Madam Speak­er, I wish not to call the name of the per­son.

Mr. Hinds: You are cast­ing as­per­sions on all Mem­bers of the House.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber, my rec­ol­lec­tion is that we have passed that stage in terms of this. An ob­jec­tion was raised on im­put­ing im­prop­er mo­tives, so it is ei­ther you with­drew, or you ac­cept­ed own­er­ship and you will dis­close. My rec­ol­lec­tion is that you opt­ed to pro­ceed and dis­close. So I do not need any­body to back up my rec­ol­lec­tion. So that, I do not know, hav­ing re­gard to the course that you have adopt­ed which is record­ed there, that you could now backpedal. Okay? You said you are ex­pos­ing your­self, that is my rec­ol­lec­tion.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I re­al­ly do have a cou­ple more points to make, so I will just in­di­cate, ac­cord­ing to your rul­ing, that the two names I have here, “Ad­di­tion­al in­struc­tions, At­ten­tion”, V-I-D-Y-A D-E-O-K-I-E-S-I-N-G-H and the sec­ond name, K-E-I-T-H R-O-W-L-E-Y. I have read it, Madam Speak­er, if this would be—[In­ter­rup­tion] Madam Speak­er, please.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber for Diego Mar­tin North/East, I know you know much bet­ter than that. Could you kind­ly get up and with­draw so that we can pro­ceed.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Apol­o­gize.

Mr. Im­bert: Madam Speak­er, I with­draw.

Madam Speak­er: Ex­cuse me. Ex­cuse me.

Mr. Im­bert: Sor­ry.

Madam Speak­er: Okay? I have asked you to with­draw.

Mr. Im­bert: Madam Speak­er, I with­draw the word “liar”.

Madam Speak­er: Con­tin­ue.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I want to move on re­al­ly, be­cause I have no in­ter­est in this. On a re­lat­ed mat­ter, I am still on the same mat­ter, but on an­oth­er is­sue re­lat­ed to the same mat­ter. Madam Speak­er, it has al­so been in the pub­lic do­main be­fore to­day. This is not the first time now, be­fore to­day, it was in the pub­lic do­main on a site, on a web­site of a ref­er­ence in re­la­tion to the AV Drilling mat­ter, a ref­er­ence to one Char­lie Di­az. And I want to put that name out as well; Char­lie Di­az. Who and what is Char­lie Di­az in Flori­da, as­so­ci­at­ed with A&V Drilling? Be­cause it was in the pub­lic do­main al­ready that there was in­for­ma­tion be­ing asked, pur­port­ed­ly be­ing asked for, on Char­lie Di­az. And in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to the bank­ing busi­ness of Char­lie Di­az.

It has al­so been in the pub­lic do­main so what I am say­ing now is cer­tain­ly not fresh, that, in an email from the In­ter­net which was cir­cu­lat­ed months ago, there was an email from one Justin Soogrim. And Justin Soogrim is send­ing an email on an email ad­dress of Vi­vian Baksh. This was al­ready in the pub­lic do­main, so this is not new.

Good morn­ing hon. Prime Min­is­ter,

The fol­low­ing is the bank­ing par­tic­u­lars for Mr. Char­lie Di­az as re­quest­ed.

Bank in­for­ma­tion, C&C In­ter­na­tion­al Trad­ing bank ac­count, and all the ac­counts there. This is old in­for­ma­tion; this is not new in­for­ma­tion.

Mr. Al-Rawi: I rise on Stand­ing Or­der 48(6). If the hon. Mem­ber would please just con­firm the source of this in­for­ma­tion. You can­not just say some­thing be­cause it is there. Again, the rou­tine is, own it, say what it is, so we can be clear to take the ac­tion that is re­quired in the event that it is re­quired.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I have how many min­utes?

Madam Speak­er: You have three min­utes and 40 sec­onds. Could you, please re­veal the—

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, it is an email, I can­not ex­hib­it, but I can tell you it is an email on a Ya­hoo ac­count of av­drilling@ya­hoo.com. The email body is much longer and I do not have time to read it. In clos­ing, I raise two crit­i­cal mat­ters of gov­er­nance. I am ask­ing for ex­pla­na­tion, and I want to go fur­ther to say some­thing. If it is that these doc­u­ments which were giv­en to me prove to be false, to be fab­ri­cat­ed, I want to say that I will be the first per­son to apol­o­gize to all who have said that, if it is proven to be false. [Crosstalk]

Madam Speak­er: Mem­bers, I want to hear the Mem­ber. I re­al­ly want to hear the Mem­ber. Please con­tin­ue.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, as I wind up now, let me put on record our very deep con­cern with files, doc­u­ments, in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to AV Drilling, the biggest cor­rup­tion scan­dal that has hit this Gov­ern­ment. [Desk thump­ing] Let us al­so, let me al­so put on record—is there a Stand­ing Or­der? Madam Speak­er, you have to give me the time, eh?

Dr. Row­ley: Madam, 48(6), please.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber, again, in terms of im­put­ing im­prop­er mo­tives with re­spect to the con­cern, I ask you to state that in an­oth­er way. With­draw it and state it in an­oth­er way.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I am still, I am speak­ing about AV Drilling and the fake oil. I am not speak­ing at this mo­ment about any­one in par­tic­u­lar.

Madam Speak­er: I know you are not speak­ing about any­one in par­tic­u­lar, but it is said in a par­tic­u­lar con­text, and that is where the im­pu­ta­tion is, so I am ask­ing— and this is some­thing that has hap­pened. Ei­ther you say what you want to say or find an­oth­er way to say it, please.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: But, Madam Speak­er, could I just pro­ceed. You see my time is go­ing.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber, I have asked you to do some­thing, ei­ther you do it—

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, I want to say with great re­spect, I am not un­der­stand­ing you clear­ly. I am pre­pared to fol­low your in­struc­tions, but I am not un­der­stand­ing be­cause I was sum­ma­riz­ing the is­sues in my few min­utes left. I was not say­ing any­thing new. I was just sum­ma­riz­ing to ask ques­tions.

Madam Speak­er: And I am say­ing in terms of the state­ment with re­spect to the con­cern, you have not said where the con­cern aris­es from and that is where the im­pu­ta­tion in the whole con­text of what you have said. So ei­ther you say com­plete­ly who you are con­cerned about, with the dis­ap­pear­ance of those things, or you with­draw it.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, we are con­cerned that of­fi­cials of Petrotrin are in­volved now in mov­ing, re­or­ga­niz­ing, clos­ing down, moth­balling, and we are con­cerned about the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of files, doc­u­ments— [Desk thump­ing]

Madam Speak­er, I on­ly have two min­utes left. The prob­lems at Petrotrin—

Mr. Al-Rawi: Again, on the ex­er­cise of 48(6), Madam Speak­er.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: No. You see, Madam Speak­er, they want to have a tri­al— [Crosstalk]

Mr. Al-Rawi: If I may ask, on Stand­ing Or­der 48(6), may I ask the hon. Mem­ber if he is pre­pared in own­ing these is­sues, to re­peat them out­side the walls of the Par­lia­ment?

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: No, Madam Speak­er, you can­not have him do­ing that.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber, you have one more minute.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Let me end by ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment square­ly, let me ask the Gov­ern­ment square­ly, to re­con­sid­er their mind on the re­trench­ment and sev­er­ance of the work­ers of Petrotrin, to re­con­sid­er their de­ci­sion to close the re­fin­ery in the in­ter­est of this coun­try. And for the Prime Min­is­ter to re­mem­ber that when he came in­to of­fice, he came in­to of­fice with the sup­port of work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly oil work­ers and the OW­TU. The work­ers—the Prime Min­is­ter and his par­ty rode the backs of those work­ers that they are now fir­ing to­day. [Desk thump­ing] Madam Speak­er, I have one minute?

Madam Speak­er: I gave you one minute.

Dr. R. Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, thank you. [Desk thump­ing]