By RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she will call in the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) to probe miss­ing da­ta tied to road and drainage works al­leged­ly car­ried out un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Pe­nal, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had raised con­cerns over al­leged cor­rup­tion in­volv­ing op­er­a­tives from the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO), the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE) Unit, and the Drainage Di­vi­sion un­der the Min­istry of Works.

She claimed per­son­nel had failed to pro­vide test re­sults for sev­er­al ma­jor road projects and ac­cused some of­fi­cials of de­lib­er­ate­ly hid­ing da­ta. She added that her ad­min­is­tra­tion will for­mal­ly re­quest the ACIB to re­view pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed con­tracts across these de­part­ments.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so pledged to ad­dress per­sis­tent flood­ing in ar­eas such as the South Oropouche Drainage Basin. She said the Min­is­ter of Works would soon is­sue di­rec­tives for the dredg­ing of ma­jor riv­er mouths along the west coast, based on sur­veys. In­ter­na­tion­al firms are ex­pect­ed to be en­gaged to car­ry out the works.

She crit­i­cised the for­mer Min­istry of Works lead­er­ship, de­scrib­ing it as op­er­at­ing like a “fam­i­ly busi­ness,” and said that era had come to an end. De­spite more than 500 de­silt­ing projects be­ing con­duct­ed un­der for­mer Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan since 2023, the Prime Min­is­ter said these works had brought no re­al re­lief.

The ACIB, es­tab­lished un­der the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, is the key in­ves­tiga­tive arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for cor­rup­tion mat­ters.

Back in 2023, Sinanan had re­port­ed that the Min­istry em­barked on over 500 de­silt­ing projects, in­clud­ing riv­er em­bank­ments, clear­ing of drains, re­shap­ing wa­ter­ways, and re­pair­ing breach­es. He had point­ed to un­planned de­vel­op­ment as a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor to flood­ing.

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group, Ed­ward Mood­ie, wel­comed the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment on dredg­ing and said he had pre­sent­ed flood mit­i­ga­tion pro­pos­als to Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen last week.

Pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Flood Ac­tion Group, Kevin Hard­uar, said while the planned dredg­ing was a pos­i­tive step, the en­tire riv­er sys­tem should al­so be cleared of veg­e­ta­tion and de­bris.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed for­mer Min­is­ter Sinanan for a re­sponse, but he had not replied up to press time.