Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for de­clin­ing to an­swer ques­tions about the pro­cure­ment of mo­bile units for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Gon­za­les had filed the ques­tions in Par­lia­ment for a writ­ten re­sponse. In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, he said: “On be­half of the cit­i­zens of T&T, the tax­pay­ers and my con­stituents of Arou­ca/Lopinot, I had asked the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty some ba­sic ques­tions for writ­ten re­sponse in the Par­lia­ment.”

Gon­za­les said he had asked Alexan­der to state:

- which state agency the TTPS used to pro­cure the mo­bile units;

- whether Cab­i­net ap­proved the use of that agency;

- what pro­cure­ment process was used;

- the to­tal con­tract cost;

- the name of the con­trac­tor that sup­plied the units;

- whether the agency fol­lowed pro­cure­ment re­quire­ments for pub­lish­ing the con­tract; and

- whether an award and stand­still pe­ri­od was ob­served be­fore the con­tract was award­ed and ex­e­cut­ed.

Gon­za­les said the re­sponse he re­ceived from Alexan­der stat­ed: “I am con­strained to in­voke the pro­vi­sions of Stand­ing Or­der 28(3) of the Stand­ing Or­ders of the House. Stand­ing Or­der 28(3) of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives pro­vides as fol­lows: ‘28 (3) A Min­is­ter may de­cline to an­swer a ques­tion if, in his opin­ion, the pub­li­ca­tion of the an­swer would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.’”

Com­ment­ing on Alexan­der’s re­sponse, Gon­za­les wrote: “See the re­sponse pro­vid­ed....Doesn’t this look like the re­al swine cul­ture in T&T?”

Alexan­der did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s re­quest for com­ment on Gon­za­les’ ques­tions or the wider is­sue.