Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young yes­ter­day boast­ed that his Gov­ern­ment was leav­ing of­fice ahead of Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion with­out any ma­jor cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions against it.

He made the com­ment at the com­mis­sion­ing of the $500 mil­lion Elmi­na Clarke-Allen High­way, say­ing its com­ple­tion was proof that ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture can be de­liv­ered with­out cor­rup­tion.

Ref­er­enc­ing the con­tro­ver­sial award of a $5.2 bil­lion con­tract to Brazil­ian firm Con­stru­to­ra OAS for the Point Fortin High­way ex­ten­sion by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Peo­ple’s part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, Young said, “What we saw be­tween 2010 and 2015 were se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion. In con­trast, this Gov­ern­ment, over the last ten years, has had none. I say that with great pride, es­pe­cial­ly now, with just one work­ing day left be­fore the elec­tion.

OAS scan­dal

“Un­like the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion, which on the fi­nal work­ing day be­fore the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, re­moved a key clause from the OAS con­tract, the sin­gle largest in­fra­struc­ture project in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry. This Gov­ern­ment has up­held trans­paren­cy.”

Prime Min­is­ter Young added, “That clause was meant to pro­tect the coun­try. Its re­moval al­most al­lowed a con­trac­tor, who had been de­clared bank­rupt and placed un­der ju­di­cial man­age­ment in Brazil since March of that year, to ab­scond with over $900 mil­lion owed to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Young was re­fer­ring to the amend­ment of a clause in the OAS con­tract for the Point Fortin High­way ex­ten­sion three days be­fore the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. The ini­tial con­tract had a clause which al­lowed gov­ern­ment to ter­mi­nate the con­tract and use bonds, which the Brazil­ian firm had to put up as a guar­an­tee for the con­tract if it went bank­rupt. How­ev­er, with the clause amend­ed, OAS even­tu­al­ly took the Gov­ern­ment to court af­ter the con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed and won an $852 mil­lion ar­bi­tra­tion rul­ing in the Lon­don Court of In­ter­na­tion­al Ar­bi­tra­tion in 2022. The rul­ing was chal­lenged by the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO), which sub­se­quent­ly won, re­vers­ing the pay­out.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Young’s claims yes­ter­day, both UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo and PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo de­ferred com­ment at the time.

Le­gal trou­bles for Govt mem­bers

While Young made the claim, the PNM’s ten years in of­fice were not, in fact, free from le­gal is­sues in­volv­ing some of its mem­bers.

Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, as plan­ning min­is­ter, faced a 2016 po­lice probe in­to al­le­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing and fraud­u­lent con­ver­sion sur­round­ing a bank trans­ac­tion; for­mer Gov­ern­ment MP and sport min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith was ac­cused of im­prop­er con­duct in of­fice in 2018; and for­mer min­is­ter and MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, now de­ceased, faced cor­rup­tion and mon­ey laun­der­ing charges in 2022. While no charges were laid against ei­ther Robin­son-Reg­is or Smith, Mc­Don­ald was charged and was be­fore the court up to her death.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Young al­so laud­ed NID­CO’s turn­around un­der cur­rent lead­er­ship, stat­ing, “When we came in, NID­CO was un­for­tu­nate­ly rid­dled with al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion. A prop­er purge has en­sured they now de­liv­er project af­ter project, no al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, and on val­ue for mon­ey.”

Young said the high­way project, once tied up in con­tro­ver­sy and le­gal chal­lenges, now stands as a sym­bol of fair de­vel­op­ment for the peo­ple of To­co and the wider north­east­ern penin­su­la.

He al­so said the Gov­ern­ment, if re­turned to of­fice, would con­tin­ue plans to build a new port in To­co, say­ing the PNM re­mains fo­cused on long-term de­vel­op­ment and trans­paren­cy.

“To­day is a good day for the north­east­ern penin­su­la of Trinidad and the con­nec­tor to To­ba­go,” Young told the crowd, which was made up of PNM sup­port­ers in red and wav­ing flags.

“It is a good day be­cause the peo­ple of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and To­co/San­gre Grande are see­ing, feel­ing, and ben­e­fit­ing from the de­vel­op­ment that is tak­ing place.”

The high­way was named af­ter Elmi­na Clarke-Allen, a for­mer sen­a­tor and min­is­ter dur­ing the first Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment (1976-1981) and MP for To­co/Man­zanil­la and Min­is­ter dur­ing the sec­ond Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment (1981-1986). Clarke-Allen died on June 27, 2000.

The high­way stretch­es 12 kilo­me­tres and con­nects Guaico to To­co. It was first con­cep­tu­alised decades ago but was start­ed in 2018 un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, it quick­ly en­coun­tered fierce op­po­si­tion from en­vi­ron­men­tal groups and mem­bers of the UNC.

The high­way’s con­struc­tion was tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed in 2020 af­ter Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) filed le­gal ac­tion, ar­gu­ing the project would dam­age the eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive Matu­ra For­est and com­pro­mise wildlife cor­ri­dors. How­ev­er, the courts even­tu­al­ly ruled in favour of the State, al­low­ing con­struc­tion to re­sume un­der the over­sight of NID­CO.

“This high­way was fought against in court, in the pub­lic do­main, and in the Par­lia­ment,” Young stat­ed.

“We stayed the course be­cause we knew it was the right thing for the peo­ple of this re­gion.”

With the high­way now com­plete, Young reaf­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to es­tab­lish­ing a fer­ry port in To­co, ar­gu­ing it will stim­u­late lo­cal eco­nom­ic growth and strength­en the Trinidad-To­ba­go con­nec­tion.

“We are pur­su­ing that port in To­co be­cause it will raise your eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances, im­prove trade, tourism, and cut trav­el time sig­nif­i­cant­ly. I look for­ward, God will­ing, to com­ing up to To­co and board­ing those fer­ries for a much short­er ride to To­ba­go,” he said.

Al­so speak­ing at the event, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said de­vel­op­ment will even­tu­al­ly ex­tend all the way to Ma­yaro, then loop back through Rio Claro to Princes Town and San Fer­nan­do cre­at­ing a ful­ly con­nect­ed net­work in the south­east.

“San­gre Grande alone has seen about $1.8 bil­lion in road­works over the past nine years. To put that in con­text, from 1956 to 2015, the to­tal in­vest­ment in this area was prob­a­bly half that amount,” Sinanan said.

“This is just the be­gin­ning. My vi­sion is to be able to dri­ve from Port-of-Spain to San­gre Grande with­out hit­ting a sin­gle traf­fic light. That is how we bring de­vel­op­ment to the east­ern seaboard.”