Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has ex­pressed con­cerns over the Court of Ap­peal’s han­dling of state­ments made by him and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in re­la­tion to a pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal in a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar car­tel case over con­tracts award­ed by the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EM­BD) in the run-up to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions. 

On Fri­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux, Mark Mo­hammed and Maria Wil­son held a hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, in which they took is­sue with com­ments made by Mooni­lal, who is a de­fen­dant in the sub­stan­tive case brought by the State agency that fell un­der his port­fo­lio while he pre­vi­ous­ly served as Hous­ing Min­is­ter. 

A tran­script of Row­ley’s state­ment was read out and a video record­ing of Mooni­lal’s com­ments was played on a tele­vi­sion screen in the court nor­mal­ly used for vir­tu­al court hear­ings. 

In his state­ment, Row­ley ap­peared to have al­leged that the Court of Ap­peal ruled in EM­BD’s favour in the ap­peal and ruled that the de­fen­dants, in­clud­ing Dr Mooni­lal, had to file their de­fences for the pro­tract­ed case to go to tri­al.

Row­ley made veiled ref­er­ences to a con­sent or­der that was en­tered dur­ing a hear­ing of the ap­peal last month, un­der which the de­fen­dants agreed to file their de­fences with­in 45 days of the Ap­peal Court rul­ing in the ap­peal. 

Dr Mooni­lal sought to ad­dress Row­ley’s com­ments dur­ing a UNC Mon­day Night Re­port in Aranguez on Mon­day. 

He ques­tioned how Row­ley could make pro­nounce­ments on the case when the Ap­peal Court is sched­uled to give its de­ci­sion next Fri­day. He al­so called on Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie to look in­to the mat­ter. 

Af­ter hear­ing the sub­mis­sions on Fri­day, the ap­peal pan­el said it would de­cide what ac­tion, if any, to take in re­la­tion to the state­ments af­ter it de­liv­ers its rul­ing in the ap­peal this week. 

In a state­ment on Fri­day, Mooni­lal said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bled by the fact that the ap­peal pan­el sought to play a record­ing of his state­ments but did not do so with Row­ley. 

Mooni­lal said, “What was dis­turb­ing about this par­tic­u­lar hear­ing is that the Court of Ap­peal Judges caused to be played a video of me, chastis­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for pro­nounc­ing on a case in which they were still ad­ju­di­cat­ing, but did not both­er to dis­play the video com­ments of the Prime Min­is­ter who, in the view of any right-think­ing cit­i­zen, act­ed with im­puni­ty and im­pro­pri­ety by dis­cussing the out­come of a case be­fore the Court of Ap­peal has ruled on the mat­ter.”

Mooni­lal de­fend­ed his orig­i­nal state­ments, as he con­tend­ed that Row­ley’s ini­tial ac­tion could be per­ceived as an at­tempt at un­der­min­ing the in­de­pen­dence of the Ju­di­cia­ry. 

“Let me be clear, I will not be si­lenced in my fight for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and in­sti­tu­tions on be­half of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I will not sur­ren­der to tyran­ny,” Mooni­lal said. 

“I will con­tin­ue to de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy from all in­sti­tu­tions, and I pray that our last bas­tion of democ­ra­cy, what I will re­fer to as the Peo­ple’s Ju­di­cia­ry (be­cause it be­longs to no Prime Min­is­ter, Judge or Chief Jus­tice) has not been com­pro­mised,” he added. 

Not­ing the adage “jus­tice is not a clois­tered virtue,” Mooni­lal said scruti­ny should be wel­comed.  

“I pray to God that the Ju­di­cia­ry is not po­lit­i­cal­ly com­pro­mised,” he said. 

The sub­stan­tive law­suit cen­tres around 12 con­tracts for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of roads and in­fra­struc­ture, which were grant­ed to five con­trac­tors be­fore the Sep­tem­ber 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion. 

Con­trac­tors TN Ram­nauth, Mooti­lal Ramhit and Sons Con­tract­ing Ltd (Ramhit), and Kall Com­pa­ny Ltd (Kall­co) ini­ti­at­ed the pro­ceed­ings against the State-owned spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny for the al­most $200 mil­lion bal­ance owed on their re­spec­tive con­tracts.

The EM­BD coun­ter­sued the con­trac­tors, claim­ing that they, as well as con­trac­tors Fides and Na­mal­co, con­spired to­geth­er with Mooni­lal, for­mer EM­BD CEO Gary Par­mas­sar, for­mer di­vi­sion­al man­ag­er Mad­hoo Bal­roop and en­gi­neer An­drew Walk­er, to cor­rupt­ly ob­tain the con­tracts.

It al­so claimed that the par­ties agreed to fa­cil­i­tate the con­trac­tors re­ceiv­ing pre­lim­i­nary pay­ments for the work, which was al­leged­ly over­priced and sub­stan­dard, and utilised a loan meant to pay for oth­er le­git­i­mate con­tracts to make in­ter­im pay­ments to the con­trac­tors.

Through the law­suit, the EM­BD is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the par­ties, in­clud­ing one on the il­le­gal­i­ty of the con­tracts.

EM­BD is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by King’s Coun­sel David Phillip and Se­nior Coun­sel Ja­son Mootoo.

Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj is lead­ing the le­gal team for the con­trac­tors, while Mooni­lal is rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC. 

The sub­stan­tive case, which has been re­as­signed to High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, has been put on hold pend­ing the out­come of the ap­peal.