Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PDP Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he now has of­fi­cial THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil notes and re­ceipts, which he be­lieves proves that the PNM mis­man­aged the now con­tro­ver­sial zip line project.

But al­though Au­gus­tine in­tends to sub­mit the in­for­ma­tion to the au­di­tor gen­er­al, the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, THA Chief sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis said he, (Au­gus­tine) is mis­lead­ing the pub­lic.

Au­gus­tine threw his sup­port­ers in­to a fren­zy while speak­ing at a Char­lot­teville com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing on Sun­day night by bran­dish­ing an en­ve­lope he said con­tained of­fi­cial THA doc­u­ments and re­ceipts in his pos­ses­sion.

He said while PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil lead­ers are try­ing to pass the blame on to pub­lic ser­vants, a “pa­tri­ot­ic To­bag­on­ian” left the en­ve­lope in his mail­box. Just days be­fore while speak­ing in the same Char­lot­teville Com­mu­ni­ty Chief Sec­re­tary Den­nis said the records be­ing sought by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al was from pre­vi­ous years and re­quired that pub­lic ser­vants search “dusty files.”

The PDP Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader said ac­cord­ing to the files in his pos­ses­sion, the THA bud­get­ed $4 mil­lion for the project and a to­tal of $3.5 mil­lion was spent in­stead of $2.5 as orig­i­nal­ly stat­ed.

“$2.5 mil­lion was paid to the for­eign com­pa­ny but we have spent on this project - in­clu­sive of ho­tel and stays for To­ba­go of­fi­cials in Mi­a­mi, in­clu­sive of ho­tel stay for the com­pa­ny to come and do sight vis­its, in­clu­sive of food and drinks - we have spent in ex­cess of $3.5 mil­lion on this project”

De­scrib­ing the state­ments made by PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader Tra­cy David­son Ce­les­tine as the “biggest lie ever told” Au­gus­tine ac­cused her of try­ing to “trick To­bag­o­ni­ans” in June last year when she said the project is 85 per cent com­plete. And ac­cord­ing to the THA Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil notes, the project should have been com­plet­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2015.

“The ser­vice provider was ready to de­liv­er all parts and equip­ment for the zip line tour, but To­ba­go had very lit­tle to show for the over $3.5 mil­lion spent, the on­ly thing on this is­land for the zip line is a piece of rope they paid Baird’s rental $1,000 to pick up and bring up from Trinidad.”

Au­gus­tine said he in­tends to send the doc­u­ments to the of­fice of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to com­plete the au­dit as well as the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er of Gary Grif­fith.

He al­so chal­lenged Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis to a pub­lic de­bate on the mis­man­age­ment of the fi­nances of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both David­son-Ce­les­tine and Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis for a com­ment on this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, while there was no re­sponse from David­son-Ce­les­tine, Den­nis said the doc­u­ments be­ing bran­dished by Au­gus­tine were ac­tu­al­ly Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil Notes giv­ing ap­proval for the project.

“The project didn’t hap­pen by vaps it was a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion to pur­sue this kind of de­vel­op­ment as part of our tourism thrust at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $4mil­lion.”

Den­nis said he been pur­su­ing the zip line project for the last sev­en months and Au­gus­tine is mis­lead­ing the pub­lic in­to think­ing the mon­ey was stolen and those re­spon­si­ble for the act are cur­rent­ly run­ning the THA.

Den­nis said he “is on­ly aware of one can­di­date in the elec­tion whose past ac­tions at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the TTPS and that is his (Au­gus­tine’s) po­lit­i­cal leader.”

He ad­vised Au­gus­tine to sub­mit what­ev­er ev­i­dence he has to sup­port his idea of crim­i­nal con­duct.

On No­vem­ber 12, last year, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment wrote a man­age­ment let­ter to the THA Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor on the find­ings of an au­dit. The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al not­ed, “no ap­proval was pre­sent­ed from the THA’s Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil for the es­tab­lish­ment of the fa­cil­i­ty.” The re­port said a vis­it to the stores sec­tion of the di­vi­sion re­vealed on­ly a por­tion of rope.