Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi is cau­tion­ing vot­ers that elect­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress could jeop­ar­dise the ben­e­fits to be had from the US$133 mil­lion T&T re­cov­ered from the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port cor­rup­tion scan­dal.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic meet­ing on Wednes­day night at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, Al-Rawi re­flect­ed on decades of le­gal bat­tles tied to the air­port con­struc­tion. He de­scribed it as mas­sive cor­rup­tion, high­light­ing al­le­ga­tions from the 1995–2000 UNC gov­ern­ment that even­tu­al­ly led to court cas­es in both T&T and the Unit­ed States.

Al-Rawi, the in­cum­bent San Fer­nan­do West MP, de­scribed the PNM’s de­ter­mined pur­suit of jus­tice, re­count­ing how civ­il lit­i­ga­tion was ini­ti­at­ed in Mi­a­mi in 2004 un­der suc­ces­sive At­tor­neys Gen­er­al.

"While the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment was in crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, we took civ­il pros­e­cu­tions and those civ­il pros­e­cu­tions were very im­por­tant be­cause we want­ed to get back our mon­ey, $1 bil­lion back in 1999 is more like $12 bil­lion to­day," Al-Rawi said.

Al-Rawi crit­i­cised the UNC’s han­dling of the case, ac­cus­ing its lead­ers of de­rail­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions dur­ing both Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s tenure as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and lat­er as prime min­is­ter. He al­leged that key per­son­nel were dis­missed, and crit­i­cal probes were starved of fund­ing, un­der­min­ing ef­forts to hold those re­spon­si­ble ac­count­able.

He al­so point­ed to the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice Act, which he claimed could have al­lowed in­di­vid­u­als im­pli­cat­ed in the Pi­ar­co scan­dal to es­cape jus­tice. De­spite its re­peal fol­low­ing pub­lic out­rage, Al-Rawi not­ed that sev­en in­di­vid­u­als in a US court had al­ready en­tered guilty pleas re­lat­ed to the scan­dal.

 “Mas­sive cor­rup­tion was per­pe­trat­ed on the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he claimed, adding that the PNM’s ef­forts se­cured a judg­ment worth $1.3 bil­lion. How­ev­er, he warned that this progress could be un­done un­der a UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion.

 “What is go­ing to hap­pen to the bil­lion-dol­lar judg­ment that we have col­lect­ed for you? If they get back in of­fice, what are they go­ing to do with that? You do not think the same old is go­ing to hap­pen?  Would it be stretched out, an­oth­er law passed, more court mat­ters, peo­ple may die?”

Al-Rawi high­light­ed some of the projects done in San Fer­nan­do East un­der his par­lia­men­tary tenure, in­clud­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al projects like the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front re­de­vel­op­ment, new hous­ing de­vel­op­ments, and job cre­ation ini­tia­tives. 

“We’ve de­liv­ered over $1.5 bil­lion in projects—close to what was owed to us for years,” he said. These projects, he said, di­rect­ly ben­e­fit cit­i­zens through in­creased op­por­tu­ni­ties, eco­nom­ic growth, and com­mu­ni­ty im­prove­ments.

Al-Rawi al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the up­com­ing April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, urg­ing vot­ers to care­ful­ly weigh their choic­es. He said the PNM’s track record demon­strates its ded­i­ca­tion to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. He warned that a re­turn to UNC lead­er­ship could risk re­peat­ing the mis­takes of the past, jeop­ar­dis­ing the hard-fought gains achieved un­der the PNM’s gov­er­nance.