Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

As in­for­ma­tion emerges about Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor Bev­er­ly Khan’s pre­vi­ous role on the board of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) un­der the last Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, her for­mer line min­is­ter has come to her de­fence, de­scrib­ing Khan as a dec­o­rat­ed pub­lic ser­vant who al­so served on board and ad­vi­so­ry po­si­tions dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia from the page UN­Cen­sored, it claimed, “Be­fore she (Bev­er­ly Khan) was ap­point­ed chair­man of the OPR, she was Mar­vin Gon­za­les’, yes, for­mer PNM pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les’, right-hand pick on the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers of WASA.”

Us­ing an AI-gen­er­at­ed voiceover, the video con­tin­ued, “Now here’s where it gets in­ter­est­ing. She was ap­point­ed to WASA’s Board of Com­mis­sion­ers in De­cem­ber 2020 and, out of the blue, re­signed on June 26, 2023. Mirac­u­lous­ly, just two days af­ter re­sign­ing, she was ap­point­ed chair­man of the OPR on June 28, 2023. Co­in­ci­dence? Ab­solute­ly not. Straight out of the PNM play­book, they plant their peo­ple in po­si­tions to do their bid­ding. Now the PNM has come to col­lect on their hand­picked ap­point­ment.”

“Now she must do the work of the PNM and pay her dues.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Mar­vin Gon­za­les con­firmed that Khan was on WASA’s board be­tween 2020 and 2023, but ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of or­ches­trat­ing a “ridicu­lous and shame­ful at­tack” against an “in­de­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­al with a proven track record.”

Gon­za­les said the Gov­ern­ment failed to men­tion that Khan al­so served un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Let me re­mind the pop­u­la­tion that be­tween 2010 and 2015, Ms Bev­er­ly Khan, as a se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cial, was ap­point­ed to the board of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go by the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment led by the UNC.”

He added, “She worked close­ly with Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie when he was min­is­ter of plan­ning.”

Gon­za­les al­so point­ed out that Khan was the re­cip­i­ent of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it for pub­lic pol­i­cy and de­vel­op­ment plan­ning.

The for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter ex­plained why he re­quest­ed that she be part of WASA’s board in 2020.

“I was giv­en the task of be­gin­ning the dif­fi­cult jour­ney of trans­form­ing WASA. Based on her track record, again, in work­ing close­ly with the IDB, be­cause she was a se­nior of­fi­cial in the Min­istry of Plan­ning and worked with the IDB (In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank), and be­cause of our part­ner­ship with the IDB to trans­form WASA, and giv­en the fact that she was a se­nior deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment saw it fit to have Ms Khan ap­point­ed as a di­rec­tor.”

As the OPR in­ves­ti­gates the pro­cure­ment process used by Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed for the Al­lam­by Res­i­den­tial De­vel­op­ment in Corinth, Land­mark­TT’s line min­is­ter, Sad­dam Ho­sein, in­sists the com­pa­ny did noth­ing wrong and says “all in­for­ma­tion will come to light” soon, adding that the OPR board and Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor “will have many ques­tions to an­swer.”

Gon­za­les be­lieves the UNC is “shame­less­ly” at­tack­ing Khan be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has found it­self in a “dif­fi­cult po­si­tion based on its own do­ing.”

“And cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go should come out and protest the un­jus­ti­fied and un­war­rant­ed at­tack by the UNC and their cronies against a pro­fes­sion­al of good stand­ing, a pro­fes­sion­al who served this coun­try for over 25 years.”

Gon­za­les said that while in Op­po­si­tion, the UNC was hap­py to quote re­ports from Khan and the OPR when there were neg­a­tive re­ports on state agen­cies un­der the PNM.

The video al­leg­ing that Khan is a pup­pet of the PNM has al­so drawn crit­i­cism from for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is.

She told Guardian Me­dia, “This is a vul­gar, crude and ob­scene at­tack on Ms Khan and de­signed to in­tim­i­date her.”

Robin­son-Reg­is added that even if no tax­pay­er funds are in­volved, the law gov­ern­ing the OPR states in plain terms that the act ap­plies to pub­lic bod­ies and to pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship arrange­ments.

Khan has not re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia’s re­quest for com­ment.