GAIL ALEXAN­DER & JAN­NELLE BERNARD

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan, who is the line min­is­ter for Plipde­co, has ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ prospec­tive can­di­date for Barataria/San Juan and in­cum­bent MP Sad­dam Ho­sein of pounc­ing on an “in­no­cent act of re­ward and recog­ni­tion” by call­ing for a probe in­to the com­pa­ny’s pur­chase of 18 tick­ets cost­ing $20,000 for the PNM’s Red Car­ni­val fete.

Dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ meet­ing in Tu­na­puna on Thurs­day evening, Ho­sein read out the memo which was signed by Plipde­co’s act­ing pres­i­dent Cur­tis Den­nie. Ho­sein showed the Feb­ru­ary 24 memo signed by Den­nie and called for ex­pla­na­tions from Plipde­co as well as from Sinanan - the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment deputy leader.

The memo stat­ed Den­nie’s re­quest for fund­ing for the type of tick­ets (six gen­er­al tick­ets cost­ing $400 each) and 12 VIP tick­ets (cost­ing $1,500 each). The memo stat­ed, “Kind­ly arrange for the cash/cheque to be made avail­able and payable to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).”

“How many oth­er State en­ter­pris­es bought tick­ets for PNM’s fete? The en­tire Plipde­co board must go!” Ho­sein said, not­ing the PNM’s fete was al­so held on State prop­er­ty - the Gov­ern­ment cam­pus in Port-of-Spain. “They’re us­ing pub­lic mon­ey to buy PNM fete tick­ets, it’s a breach of the In­tegri­ty In Pub­lic Life law,” he added.

But yes­ter­day, Sinanan said if the Board and the man­age­ment team took the de­ci­sion to treat staff with tick­ets to a Car­ni­val fete, they would be act­ing in line with their le­gal re­mit.

He added, “I am re­li­ably in­formed that none of these tick­ets were as­signed to mem­bers of the board. “It is un­for­tu­nate that Sad­dam Ho­sein would choose to pounce on this in­no­cent act of re­ward and recog­ni­tion, which cost the com­pa­ny $20,000, and would fail to recog­nise that far worse was done when the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship were in pow­er.”

Sinanan al­so pro­vid­ed an in­voice which he said showed that a State com­pa­ny paid a hefty sum for fete tick­ets which did not go to staff. “I speak specif­i­cal­ly to the at­tached in­voice which shows an in­stance where over $350,000 was ex­pend­ed by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny in the pur­chase of tick­ets to one sin­gle Car­ni­val Fete in Feb­ru­ary 2015 and which were in turn dis­trib­uted to friends and fam­i­ly of the UNC.

Away from the Plipde­co is­sue, Ho­sein ac­cused At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is of be­ing un­able to ad­vise the Cab­i­net, since she didn’t have a valid cur­rent cer­tifi­cate to prac­tice. Ho­sein not­ed the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s warn­ing that per­sons can’t prac­tice mi­nus a cer­tifi­cate. He said it would be em­bar­rass­ing for an AG to go to the court and un­der­go the nec­es­sary process­es to have a cer­tifi­cate is­sued.

Mean­while, every speak­er at the UNC meet­ing launched blis­ter­ing dis­missals of new Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

In his ad­dress, which closed the meet­ing, deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal de­clared, “You can’t com­pare Young to UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Young has all the charm of Han­ni­bal Lecter … you can’t un­bul­ly your­self sir ... don’t al­low Young to bul­ly T&T!”

Mooni­lal wel­comed Wendy Lewis, for­mer pro­to­col of­fi­cer of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. Mooni­lal said Lewis is help­ing UNC San Fer­nan­do East prospec­tive can­di­date John Al­i­bo­cus. He said, “many oth­ers are join­ing us.”

“Stu­art Young says it’s a ‘new chap­ter’ for PNM but that’s a new chap­ter in an old dis­gust­ing book,” Mooni­lal said, al­so slam­ming Gov­ern­ment’s ap­point­ment of Arthur Bar­ring­ton as the new Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency head.

Among those present at the meet­ing was Jack Warn­er, who’s been cam­paign­ing for UNC prospec­tive can­di­date Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj for Arou­ca/Lopinot.