Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Gov­ern­ment has full con­fi­dence that Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein and state en­ter­prise Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed fol­lowed the prop­er pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures in re­la­tion to the con­tro­ver­sial Al­lam­by Res­i­den­tial De­vel­op­ment project, now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

Speak­ing on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, Padarath said: “We are very con­fi­dent that our hands are clean, that we have fol­lowed due process, and we will lis­ten to the ad­vice of the OPR and fol­low suit.”

The Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion is cur­rent­ly prob­ing the pro­cure­ment process used by Land­mark­TT for the Al­lam­by Res­i­den­tial De­vel­op­ment in Corinth, fol­low­ing con­cerns raised over the use of se­lec­tive ten­der­ing in­stead of open com­pet­i­tive bid­ding.

Mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion have ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of by­pass­ing pro­cure­ment safe­guards, rais­ing ques­tions about trans­paren­cy at the new­ly es­tab­lished state en­ter­prise, which falls un­der Ho­sein’s purview.

Padarath, how­ev­er, de­fend­ed both the min­is­ter and the en­ti­ty, in­sist­ing the Gov­ern­ment re­mains con­fi­dent that the process was prop­er­ly con­duct­ed.

“We are al­so very con­fi­dent in our po­si­tion that no wrong­do­ing has oc­curred and we have every trust, faith and con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs,” he said.

He al­so ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of hypocrisy over al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism and gov­er­nance con­cerns be­ing raised against the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion was very qui­et when Bridgid Anisette-George’s hus­band, New­man George, was chair­man of sev­er­al state en­ter­pris­es,” Padarath claimed.

He fur­ther ref­er­enced for­mer Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT) chair­man Noel Gar­cia.

“When Noel Gar­cia was the chair­man of UDe­COTT and his fam­i­ly mem­ber be­came Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and an­oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber al­so served as Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, no­body had a prob­lem then,” Padarath ar­gued.

“So spare me the hypocrisy from the PNM on any is­sue of nepo­tism,” he added.

Ho­sein has re­peat­ed­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing and has pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that Land­mark­TT would con­tin­ue co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with the OPR’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion.