Denyse Renne

The biggest fraud cas­es in this coun­try's his­to­ry-which saw bil­lions of dol­lars in tax­pay­ers mon­ey al­leged­ly be­ing pumped in­to the pock­ets of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) fi­nanciers-are ex­pect­ed to be dis­missed lat­er this week. The Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project scan­dal has been on­go­ing for more than ten years and in­volves sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als af­fil­i­at­ed with the present Gov­ern­ment. Two weeks ago, The Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act 2011 was pro­claimed by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards in a move to end pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries in the lo­cal courts.

Cer­tain parts of the act will come in­to ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1, 2013. The Pres­i­dent's procla­ma­tion was gazetted on Au­gust 30. With the act in ef­fect, the Pre­lim­i­nary En­quiry Act has been re­placed and nul­li­fies the need for a pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry to be held in re­la­tion to mat­ters filed in­dictably.

How­ev­er, the act bears a con­tro­ver­sial clause-Sec­tion 34(2), which states: "On an ap­pli­ca­tion by the ac­cused, a Judge shall dis­charge an ac­cused if the pro­ceed­ings were in­sti­tut­ed pri­or to the com­ing in­to force of this Act and the tri­al has not com­menced with­in sev­en years af­ter the pro­ceed­ings were in­sti­tut­ed, ex­cept (a) in the case of mat­ters list­ed in Sched­ule 6; or (b) where the ac­cused has evad­ed the process of the Court and the tri­al on in­dict­ment has, for that rea­son, not com­menced."

It is this clause which will see the ac­cused peo­ple in the Pi­ar­co Air­port project hav­ing their mat­ters dis­missed. Con­tact­ed on the mat­ter, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, SC, said he pre­ferred not to com­ment, since the mat­ter is be­fore the courts. Sev­er­al peo­ple have been charged in re­la­tion to the mat­ter. Among those charged with fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties aris­ing out of the con­struc­tion of the air­port are two ex-min­is­ters from the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The ac­cused-for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei-Tung; for­mer Works min­is­ter Sadiq Baksh; for­mer chair­men of the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty Ty­rone Gopee and Ameer Edoo; for­mer client rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Min­istry of Works at the air­port project Pe­ter Cateau; fi­nan­cial di­rec­tor Am­rith Ma­haraj; Steve Fer­gu­son, for­mer Mar­itime Fi­nan­cial Group ex­ec­u­tive­ly; and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, chair­man of North­ern Con­struc­tion Ltd; are in­volved in the Pi­ar­co II case.

The men are ac­cused of con­spir­ing be­tween Jan­u­ary 1, 1995 and De­cem­ber 31, 2001, to ob­tain con­tracts and pay­ments to­tal­ing $1.6 bil­lion dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the new air­port. An­oth­er case, la­belled Pi­ar­co I, is al­so ex­pect­ed to be dis­con­tin­ued. Those in­volved in this mat­ter are Kuei Tung; Rus­sell Hug­gins; Mar­itime ex­ec­u­tives John Smith; Fer­gu­son and Bar­bara Gomes; Gal­barans­ingh and Ma­haraj; and busi­ness­woman Re­nee Pierre.

They are ac­cused of con­spir­ing to con­vert more than $19 mil­lion un­der false pre­tences from the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty. Al­so fac­ing charges are Pan­day and his wife Oma who were charged with cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing $250,000 from Gal­barans­ingh and for­mer Min­is­ter Car­los John on De­cem­ber 30, 1998, in ex­change for al­leged­ly giv­ing North­ern Con­struc­tion, a con­tract for the Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project. Mil­lions spent Mil­lions of dol­lars have been spent on le­gal fees and al­so con­sul­tan­cy fees by the then PNM gov­ern­ment to in­ves­ti­gate and rep­re­sent the State in these mat­ters.

A Com­mis­sion of En­quiry was es­tab­lished in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co project. Fol­low­ing which the Com­mis­sions find­ings were sent to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau. In fact, fi­nan­cial in­ves­tiga­tive ex­pert Bob Lindquist was re­tained to con­duct a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the mat­ter and sev­er­al of his find­ings formed part of the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed to the courts. The Lin­quist Re­port found the Air­port project was a fraud on the pub­lic of T&T and an abuse of pub­lic funds.

Ac­cord­ing to the Lindquist re­port, the Pi­ar­co project be­gan with six con­trac­tors and ex­pand­ed to 13. Lin­quist in­ves­ti­ga­tions dis­cov­ered in­stances of fraud-price fix­ing and bid-rig­ging, du­pli­ca­tion of pay­ment con­tracts, false in­voic­es, con­flict of in­ter­est and a host of oth­er ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

Queen's Coun­sel and Se­nior Coun­sel were al­so re­tained by the State to pros­e­cute the mat­ters. Apart from which, nu­mer­ous ap­pli­ca­tions were filed in the High Court, when de­ci­sions made by pre­sid­ing Mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet at the Port of Spain Mag­is­trates' Court were not favourable to the ac­cused. Ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings and the Pi­ar­co In­quiry Iron­i­cal­ly though, two of the peo­ple in­volved in the Pi­ar­co cas­es- busi­ness­men Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son based their ex­tra­di­tion sub­mis­sions as hav­ing cas­es pend­ing in the lo­cal courts, and as a re­sult ought not be ex­tra­dit­ed to the Unit­ed States.

Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son are want­ed in the US on a se­ries of charges aris­ing out of the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co project. Gal­barans­ingh faced 13 charges, among them wire fraud, con­spir­a­cy to laun­der mon­ey and en­gag­ing in un­law­ful trans­ac­tions. Fer­gu­son faced a to­tal of 82 charges, which in­clud­ed wire fraud and con­spir­a­cy to laun­der mon­ey. The of­fences are al­leged to have oc­curred in the US, T&T, The Ba­hamas and else­where be­tween Sep­tem­ber 1,1996 and De­cem­ber 31, 2005.

On No­vem­ber 6, last year, High Court judge Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh ruled that the busi­ness­men should not be ex­tra­dit­ed to the Unit­ed States. Boodoos­ingh, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain High Court, de­liv­ered a 57-page rul­ing say­ing that any move to have Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son ex­tra­dit­ed would be "un­just, op­pres­sive and un­law­ful." In his rul­ing, Boodoos­ingh said the lengthy pro­ceed­ings against the busi­ness­men have gen­er­at­ed much pub­lic in­ter­est and com­ment.

The High Court judge said T&T was the cor­rect fo­rum to try the busi­ness­men and quashed the Oc­to­ber 9, 2010, de­ci­sion of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to sign the or­der of ex­tra­di­tion for both men. Sub­mis­sions pro­vid­ed by the busi­ness­men through their at­tor­neys con­tend­ed that this coun­try is the ap­pro­pri­ate fo­rum to try them, since the in­ves­ti­ga­tion start­ed here in 2000.