Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship works min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is pre­pared to ap­pear be­fore a Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee ex­am­in­ing the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way con­struc­tion—and he’s ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of al­leged­ly mak­ing “er­rors” when Row­ley spoke about the high­way project on Wednes­day.

“To come to the ho­n­ourable House (Par­lia­ment) and mis­rep­re­sent the facts should in­voke (Par­lia­ment’s) Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee to treat with this de­lib­er­ate strange­ness to truth that was re­port­ed by our Prime Min­is­ter,” Warn­er added yes­ter­day in a state­ment seek­ing to clear the air on is­sues con­cern­ing the project.

His re­sponse fol­lowed Row­ley’s state­ment in Par­lia­ment, when he said a pa­per on the high­way project is be­ing re­ferred to the Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Land and In­fra­struc­ture for “ur­gent de­tailed ex­am­i­na­tion”.

The pa­per, which was laid in Par­lia­ment, is en­ti­tled “The Saga of the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin Project”.

Row­ley raised con­cerns about is­sues re­gard­ing the con­struc­tion of the high­way un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship/Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment, their in­ter­ac­tion with Con­stru­to­ra OAS SA—and OAS ex­ec­u­tives’ trip to South Africa for a “se­cret meet­ing” with a Cab­i­net mem­ber “re­spon­si­ble for and in­volved in the de­ci­sion on the project”.

Yes­ter­day, Warn­er said he would “most def­i­nite­ly” ap­pear be­fore the JSC if re­quest­ed. He added that he wished to put on record—via his state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day—an ac­cu­rate ac­count of the process which led to the award of the de­sign-build con­tract to OAS as it re­lates to him.

“I pro­pose to cor­rect the er­rors laid out by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter on Wednes­day,” he said.

Warn­er said short­ly af­ter his ap­point­ment as Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, he met with the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and got down to the first or­der of busi­ness—a re­quest of all the ma­jor out­stand­ing or in­com­plete projects left be­hind by the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Warn­er said the con­struc­tion of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way was the biggest project.

“There were three bid­ders. Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed at $6.8 bil­lion, Con­stru­to­ra OAS SA at $5.2 bil­lion and GLF Con­struc­tion Cor­po­ra­tion, the ex­act bid I can­not re­call,” he added.

“Based on the doc­u­ments pre­sent­ed to me, the past PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had done ex­ten­sive work with re­gard to the se­lec­tion of a con­trac­tor and it was clear that it had agreed to go with Con­stru­to­ra OAS SA with its $5.2 bil­lion bid, even though it was $1.6 bil­lion above the en­gi­neer’s price of $3.6 bil­lion.”

Warn­er quot­ed an April 9, 2016, T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle ti­tled “Row­ley de­nies award of con­tract to Brazil­ian firm,” writ­ten by Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly.

“… In the last re­port of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) for Oc­to­ber 2015 and its for­mer pres­i­dent Dr Car­son Charles, on May 13, 2010, the Ten­ders Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed that Nid­co en­ter in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions with OAS Con­stru­to­ra Ltd as a pre­ferred re­spon­dent,” he read.

Warn­er said the ar­ti­cle went on to re­port, “… At the end of the ten­der eval­u­a­tion process, the rec­om­men­da­tion was sent to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port. On May 25, 2010, one day af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion, un­der then Nid­co pres­i­dent Keisha Ince, Nid­co in­formed OAS by let­ter that it was the pre­ferred re­spon­dent.”

Warn­er added, “So the ground­work for se­lect­ing Con­stru­to­ra OAS SA was com­plet­ed un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion and the then pres­i­dent of Nid­co, Keisha Ince, one day af­ter the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship was vot­ed in­to pow­er, in­formed OAS that it was the pre­ferred re­spon­dent. These facts have nev­er been con­tra­dict­ed.”

“A Sat­ur­day morn­ing, the date which I can­not re­call af­ter some 13 years, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance (for­mer), Win­ston Dook­er­an, sum­moned the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Cheryl Black­man and me to his of­fice. He want­ed to be sure re­gard­ing the in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the Point Fortin High­way and that the PNM did its due dili­gence be­fore rec­om­mend­ing the con­trac­tor. Af­ter that, the mat­ter left our hands and Nid­co took over the process,” Warn­er stat­ed.

Clear­ing the air on what he said was the Prime Min­is­ter’s “ob­ses­sion to my vis­it to South Africa” and its con­nec­tion to the high­way con­tract, Warn­er said this was around the time of the men’s 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa.

“As FI­FA’s vice pres­i­dent, I was re­quired to be there but I didn’t plan to stay for the en­tire event. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Con­stru­to­ra OAS SA vis­it­ed me at my ho­tel, with­out any pri­or knowl­edge that they were com­ing. They re­quest­ed from me a sta­tus re­port on the high­way, since com­mu­ni­ca­tion was not forth­com­ing,” he added.

“I in­formed the rep­re­sen­ta­tives that it would be re­miss of me to dis­cuss Gov­ern­ment’s busi­ness with­out ap­proval from the Cab­i­net. I asked them to reach out to Nid­co for an up­date. They even of­fered to fly me back to T&T, which I re­fused be­cause the op­tics of that jour­ney would have made me con­flict­ed. So I trav­elled back first class from Jo­han­nes­burg in South Africa on British Air­ways and al­lowed the OAS of­fi­cials to com­mu­ni­cate with Nid­co of­fi­cials on this mat­ter,” Warn­er said.