KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen says, aside from the miss­ing $90,000, there may be even more mon­ey un­ac­count­ed for from the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC).

She said for­mer min­is­ters may have ques­tions to an­swer about fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties at the SFCC.

Speak­ing in Ca­paro dur­ing a vis­it to wa­ter­cours­es and ar­eas be­ing cleaned by work­ers un­der the min­istry, Ameen gave an up­date on the probe in­to the miss­ing tax­es and fees col­lect­ed be­tween April 30 and May 16.

She said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion had un­earthed sev­er­al con­cern­ing is­sues re­gard­ing the mis­man­age­ment of funds—and there may be even more mon­ey un­ac­count­ed for.

“It ap­pears that that is on­ly the tip of the ice­berg, and we will have more in­ves­ti­ga­tions and there are per­sons who, al­so past gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, who may be help­ful in those in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” Ameen said.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the mon­ey was stored in a locked cab­i­net in sealed Re­pub­lic Bank en­velopes. How­ev­er, when an act­ing ac­coun­tant re­turned to work on May 19, the cab­i­net had been opened us­ing a key and the mon­ey was gone.

Sev­er­al staff mem­bers at the SFCC had ac­cess to the cab­i­net where the miss­ing $90,000 was stored, but none were au­tho­rised to re­move the funds.

Ef­forts to con­tact San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris yes­ter­day for a re­sponse to Ameen’s lat­est al­le­ga­tions about the SFCC were un­suc­cess­ful.

How­ev­er, in a re­cent in­ter­view Par­ris la­belled the miss­ing mon­ey as an em­bar­rass­ment. He said the dis­hon­esty had cre­at­ed a cli­mate of mis­trust with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Heather Craw­ford had been in­struct­ed to sub­mit a re­port to the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the miss­ing funds are cur­rent­ly be­ing con­duct­ed both in­ter­nal­ly and by the San Fer­nan­do Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID) of the TTPS.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Ameen said her ob­jec­tive is to en­sure tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey “do not get feet and walk away” and that those com­plic­it are brought to jus­tice.

She stressed that any­one who stayed silent while know­ing of wrong­do­ing with­in mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions was com­plic­it in the crime. As such, she said, the chips will fall where they may once the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­cludes.

“We must hold all pub­lic of­fi­cials ac­count­able. Whether they are elect­ed of­fi­cials or pub­lic ser­vants, whether they are UNC or PNM, we must hold every­one ac­count­able. There are a lot of ques­tions the me­dia would ask to the UNC, but I want to ask you to ask the of­fice­hold­ers and the se­nior of­fi­cers who are there to ac­count for them­selves.”

Ameen added that sys­tems ex­ist to pre­vent mon­ey from go­ing miss­ing if they are fol­lowed.

“The ques­tion is who broke pro­to­col, who al­lowed it to con­tin­ue. They must an­swer for them­selves.”