ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has re­frained from di­rect­ly com­ment­ing on cost over­runs re­lat­ed to the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ex­pan­sion project.

How­ev­er, when ques­tioned on the is­sue at the Low­lands Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty, he said if the over­runs are found to be un­jus­ti­fied, in­ves­ti­ga­tions—po­ten­tial­ly crim­i­nal or civ­il—may be war­rant­ed. Au­gus­tine said ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in such mat­ters are im­por­tant.

“I don’t have the ben­e­fit of the de­tails. Of course, if the cost over­runs were un­jus­ti­fied, then it will mean there will be need, for per­haps, crim­i­nal and civ­il in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter.”

De­spite the con­tro­ver­sy be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion on the project, Au­gus­tine spoke of the air­port’s progress and the ben­e­fits it will bring to To­ba­go. Say­ing he hopes all is­sues are ironed out be­fore its ex­pect­ed open­ing, he said, “At one point my of­fice re­ceived a re­port from a whistle­blow­er claim­ing that some of the work didn’t meet struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty. I have since asked some qual­i­fied ex­perts to look at the pho­tos and videos that were sent to me. I wouldn’t want to run out in­to terms of com­men­tary.”

Mean­while, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke said he has noth­ing to say about the air­port at this time.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from the me­dia, Duke, in a short video, said he didn’t want to get in­volved in dis­cus­sions about mon­ey and cor­rup­tion.

“I see the thing from out­side, it looks good. I can’t fault him (Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley) for that,” Duke said.

He added: “I want those who have more in­for­ma­tion about cor­rup­tion to car­ry to the po­lice and car­ry it in a court of law, per­se­cute them or pros­e­cute them, as the case may be, but it’s not for me who don’t have ac­cess to that in­for­ma­tion to see there is cor­rup­tion.

“What I know is that we are get­ting a beau­ti­ful air­port, bet­ter than what we had and one that looks much more beau­ti­ful than plen­ty of our Caribbean neigh­bours. The Trinidad air­port came out in shame, scan­dal. The To­ba­go air­port is (in) re­venge, that it must come out in shame, scan­dal too?”

Duke’s main con­cern, how­ev­er, is that To­ba­go con­trac­tors did not get enough work on the project.

“The mon­ey was spent in Asia, not in To­ba­go.”

Al­so re­spond­ing to con­cerns about the project, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris ac­cused the To­ba­go Pro­gres­sive Par­ty (TPP) of work­ing with the UNC to un­der­mine the new air­port be­cause they see it as a po­lit­i­cal threat and a po­ten­tial boost for the PNM.

He is up­set that in­stead of cel­e­brat­ing the new air­port, a THA sec­re­tary had dis­missed it, say­ing it should be put “where the sun don’t shine.”

In a me­dia con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, he bashed Sec­re­tary of Tourism Tashia Bur­ris for at­tack­ing the air­port.

Mor­ris said, “She is one who is sup­posed to be an en­abler, a dri­ver to help boost both ar­rivals and at­tract new in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines and in­vestors for To­ba­go but she’s say­ing for them (Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment) to take that air­port and stuff it where the sun doh shine.”

He added that he wasn’t sur­prised, point­ing to what he claimed was a close re­la­tion­ship be­tween the TPP and UNC.

“And there­fore, you had the first at­tack in To­ba­go, and their part­ners in crime, they tagged their part­ners in Trinidad, and you saw, this week, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion com­ing out, try­ing to cre­ate some kind of nar­ra­tive about this air­port, as to take away from the gains, just be­cause they know an elec­tion is right round the cor­ner. To­bag­o­ni­ans are feel­ing good about this air­port.”