Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said that it was "amaz­ing" that a woman linked to the last gov­ern­ment's fall was put in a sim­i­lar po­si­tion re­lat­ed to cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing the present gov­ern­ment. "What hap­pened there? The gov­ern­ment fell even­tu­al­ly. (It fell on) cor­rup­tion, brought down by two min­is­ters," Row­ley told the Trinidad Guardian out­side Par­lia­ment's Cham­bers yes­ter­day. "It would be in­ter­est­ing to see what her po­si­tion was in Pi­ar­co (In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port scan­dal) be­cause there was no gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, ex­cept in the end, (who sup­port­ed calls for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion)." Row­ley ex­plained that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's can­di­date to re­place Calder Hart for the po­si­tion of Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) chair­man, Jear­lean John, held a sig­nif­i­cant po­si­tion in the Pi­ar­co Air­port cor­rup­tion scan­dal that hit the for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment.

"An­oth­er gov­ern­ment, un­der an­oth­er par­ty, has a sim­i­lar prob­lem with a state en­ter­prise on pro­cure­ment and al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and the same per­son is ap­point­ed in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion," Row­ley said. "I find that that is just ab­solute­ly amaz­ing...I do not know how you see it but that is amaz­ing." He not­ed that John was ap­point­ed un­der UNC Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day to the po­si­tion of Min­is­ter of Trans­port af­ter con­cerns were raised about im­prop­er fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ties oc­cur­ring in the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. "I was a mem­ber of the PNM (Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment) Op­po­si­tion who was pros­e­cut­ing the mat­ter. What did the Prime Min­is­ter (Bas­deo Pan­day) do then? He ap­point­ed Jear­lean John Min­is­ter to (be the Min­is­ter of) Trans­port, who had the port­fo­lio for the Pi­ar­co project," Row­ley said.

Row­ley not­ed that the Guin­ness Book of Records should in­clude him in their records for be­ing the lone Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment to raise con­cerns about cor­rup­tion af­fect­ing the op­er­a­tions of two con­sec­u­tive rul­ing gov­ern­ments, one which he op­posed and one which he re­mained a mem­ber. "I am in a very unique po­si­tion in this coun­try. I am the on­ly the per­son who gets drawn in­to these things like that. This must be one for the Guin­ness Book of Records," Row­ley said. He not­ed that his con­cerns about cor­rup­tion ex­ist­ing in the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port project un­der then Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day were sim­i­lar to his con­cerns about cor­rup­tion ex­ist­ing at Ude­cott un­der present Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning be­cause no Cab­i­net mem­ber of ei­ther gov­ern­ment sup­port­ed his con­cerns.

"There were gov­ern­ment min­is­ters de­fend­ing (the project at,) Pi­ar­co and, in fact, deny­ing what I was say­ing in the Par­lia­ment, even though the doc­u­ments were pro­duced in Par­lia­ment.�So that was one side of the Guin­ness book of Records," Row­ley said. He not­ed that the most im­por­tant thing that the Prime Min­is­ter said yes­ter­day was his ac­knowl­edg­ment that Row­ley ap­proached him since 2003 about con­cerns of cor­rup­tion at Ude­cott. "I took com­fort in the fact that he (Man­ning) did not and could not de­ny that I had come to him and re­port­ed the po­ten­tial for wrong­do­ing at Ude­cott ex­cept that he went on to say that that was half of the sto­ry," Row­ley said. "Well, I pre­sume that he has the oth­er half some­where else and he has not been able to give it up to now to us ex­cept that I took com­fort in the fact that he could not and did not de­ny it."

More in­fo:

?Jear­lean John has said that her ex­pe­ri­ence from the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port fi­as­co has giv­en her some "well-found­ed ex­pe­ri­ence" to as­sume her func­tions as Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) chair­man. "I have some ex­pe­ri­ence with large scale projects," John told the Trinidad Guardian, dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day. "With this job, I have a well-found­ed ex­pe­ri­ence in terms of go­ing in­to sit­u­a­tions and en­sur­ing that things get done and we meet the ob­jec­tives be­cause when I got in­to Pi­ar­co I saw some ex­treme­ly am­bi­tious and ag­gres­sive per­sons and by large, not un­der­es­ti­mat­ing what I have to do at Ude­cott, I think I can go there and do an above av­er­age job." John said that she re­ceived a call from Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning around mid-morn­ing yes­ter­day, in­di­cat­ing that she was the pre­ferred can­di­date to be Ude­cott chair­man af­ter Calder Hart's res­ig­na­tion from the po­si­tion one week ago.

"Yes, I was called by the Prime Min­is­ter...Well, it was a sur­prise. I was out vis­it­ing our (the HDC's) rental com­mu­ni­ty. I was on low­er Dun­can Street (in Port-of-Spain) at the time. (I was) treat­ing with the peo­ple's busi­ness in terms of the ten­ants and so on. I was get­ting to know the area and the peo­ple and our apart­ment. It was like mid-morn­ing." John said. John, who was the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, said that she was both will­ing and ea­ger to as­sume her new du­ties at Ude­cott. "Well, I said, well lis­ten, if re­al­ly this is what you (the Prime Min­is­ter) are ask­ing of me, then okay, fine. I will do it. I am not in­to dra­ma," John said. "It will be an in­ter­est­ing as­sign­ment. Quite frankly, I am hap­py. It does fit well with what I am do­ing at the HDC. I have been re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in Vi­sion 2020 and I know that Ude­cott was spear­head­ing that." John said that she recog­nised that it was "a dif­fer­ent kind of job" but she had the "fun­da­men­tals skills."

She an­tic­i­pat­ed to be ap­point­ed to the Ude­cott board "short­ly, hope­ful­ly in the new week" and she ex­pect­ed to meet oth­er mem­bers of the Ude­cott board af­ter her ap­point­ment. John re­vealed that she had not been in con­tact with oth­er mem­bers of the Ude­cott board but she con­ced­ed to speak­ing with Ude­cott Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer, Nee­lan­da Ram­paul. "I have spo­ken to her (Nee­lan­da) to­day. She is a very com­pe­tent pro­fes­sion­al and very much in­volved in the busi­ness of Ude­cott and so I did speak with her. She did reach out to me. We had a use­ful con­ver­sa­tion," John said.