Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“He mis­led the pop­u­la­tion, no ex­cus­es there.” This was the frank as­sess­ment from po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath in re­sponse to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s ex­pla­na­tion for the ex­tent of cost over­runs in the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ex­pan­sion project.

Ra­goonath’s com­ments come amid mount­ing crit­i­cism of Im­bert, who re­cent­ly ad­mit­ted to $118 mil­lion in over­runs—a fig­ure he had down­played just a day pri­or. Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Im­bert de­nied the Op­po­si­tion’s claim of sig­nif­i­cant cost over­runs, sug­gest­ing the amount was on­ly $16.9 mil­lion.

How­ev­er, a leaked Cab­i­net note dat­ed No­vem­ber 28 re­vealed he had sought ap­proval for ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, con­tra­dict­ing his ear­li­er state­ment. By Fri­day, Im­bert ac­knowl­edged the true fig­ure. He jus­ti­fied his ini­tial omis­sion, stat­ing he on­ly want­ed to share de­tails he was “ful­ly in­formed about,” adding that the me­dia would have dis­cov­ered the in­for­ma­tion even­tu­al­ly.

The rev­e­la­tion has sparked back­lash, with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar call­ing for Im­bert’s res­ig­na­tion or re­moval from of­fice.

Ques­tions of ac­count­abil­i­ty

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian, Dr Ra­goonath ques­tioned whether Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley would act against Im­bert, de­spite pub­lic out­rage. He point­ed to the gov­ern­ment’s pre­vi­ous in­ac­tion over Im­bert’s al­leged mis­han­dling of a $2.6 bil­lion dis­crep­an­cy flagged by Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass.

“I do not see the Prime Min­is­ter tak­ing ac­tion, even though the same min­is­ter’s min­istry was re­spon­si­ble for a $3 bil­lion er­ror, and noth­ing was done about it,” Ra­goonath said.

He added that while Row­ley has the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to de­cide his Cab­i­net, the Op­po­si­tion is jus­ti­fied in crit­i­cis­ing Im­bert.

“If he took a note to Cab­i­net seek­ing ap­proval for the over­runs, he should have re­mem­bered those fig­ures. For him to claim US$2.5 mil­lion in­stead of the to­tal amount was clear­ly an at­tempt to mis­lead the pub­lic and car­ry on a nar­ra­tive that there were no ma­jor over­runs,” Ra­goonath stat­ed.

Po­lit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves the con­tro­ver­sy sig­nals a deep­er is­sue with­in the gov­ern­ment’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy. He ar­gued that proac­tive trans­paren­cy could have pre­vent­ed the back­lash.

“This de­ba­cle high­lights the Gov­ern­ment’s poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion ap­proach,” Mo­hammed said. “They should have ad­dressed the is­sue pub­licly be­fore the in­for­ma­tion was leaked.”

Mo­hammed al­so sug­gest­ed that Im­bert’s de­par­ture from pol­i­tics might be im­mi­nent, fram­ing the sit­u­a­tion as part of Row­ley’s ef­forts to re­shape the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). He point­ed to signs of change with­in the par­ty, such as the po­ten­tial el­e­va­tion of Stu­art Young as po­lit­i­cal leader and the re­place­ment of Fitzger­ald Hinds with Ka­reem Mar­celle as the Laven­tille West con­stituen­cy can­di­date.

“The re­cent con­tro­ver­sies, in­clud­ing the au­di­tor gen­er­al fi­as­co and the air­port cost over­runs, pro­vide am­mu­ni­tion for the PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee to push for Im­bert’s forced re­tire­ment,” Mo­hammed said.

He spec­u­lat­ed that the PNM’s De­cem­ber 20 screen­ing com­mit­tee meet­ing could mark the end of Im­bert’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

Mo­hammed crit­i­cised Im­bert’s ex­pla­na­tion as an in­sult to the na­tion’s in­tel­li­gence.

“Im­bert is the most ar­ro­gant min­is­ter this coun­try has ever seen. He can­not ex­pect econ­o­mists, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists, busi­ness­men, and se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cers to ac­cept such bla­tant po­lit­i­cal de­cep­tion,” Mo­hammed said.

Mean­while, Ra­goonath ar­gued that some of the gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions re­flect a lack of con­cern for eth­i­cal gov­er­nance. He at­trib­uted this to the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port both the PNM and the UNC en­joy from their re­spec­tive vot­er bases. He said nei­ther par­ty fears los­ing its base, which is why the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues with mea­sures like the four per cent salary in­crease of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants and au­tho­ris­ing new salaries for MPs.

Mo­hammed added that if the PNM were con­fi­dent in its po­si­tion, it would have held the gen­er­al elec­tion in De­cem­ber. In­stead, he sug­gest­ed the Gov­ern­ment is us­ing the re­main­ing months to strength­en its chances ahead of the 2025 dead­line.