A $1 mil­lion T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) bill paid for the Prime Min­is­ter's Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre at St Ann's was on­ly part of the out­stand­ing $168 mil­lion owed by var­i­ous Gov­ern­ment min­istries for projects and ser­vices at the end of March. The hefty elec­tric­i­ty bill was part of the ex­pens­es owed to T&TEC for a one-year pe­ri­od af­ter the PM's res­i­dence nev­er re­ceived a bill up­on com­ple­tion. Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that be­tween April and May chair­man Jear­lean John sent sev­er­al re­quests for monies owed to Ude­cott on var­i­ous projects and fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment.

How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­veal that up to the mid­dle of June, they were on­ly able to col­lect ap­prox­i­mate­ly $65 mil­lion, leav­ing some $96 mil­lion out­stand­ing. A source said Ude­cott was be­ing asked to make pay­ments for cer­tain projects and gov­ern­ment min­istries even though there were no for­mal con­tracts for fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment. "There's sup­posed to be an agree­ment. It is stat­ed clear­ly in the Uff re­port that fund­ing for spe­cif­ic projects is not to be used to fi­nance oth­er projects. How­ev­er, this is some­thing that has been hap­pen­ing for some time and con­tin­ues to hap­pen," a source said. "What was hap­pen­ing is that if the di­rec­tive came from on top you could not have said no."