Monies for Chil­dren Reg­istry spent on govt trav­el- Tan­coo

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Two mil­lion dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed for the Es­tab­lish­ment of a Na­tion­al Chil­dren’s Reg­istry and the es­tab­lish­ment of a Con­sol­i­dat­ed Child Sup­port cen­tre was in­stead used by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his en­tourage to trav­el to the Unit­ed States says Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

Speak­ing at the UNC's Sun­day press con­fer­ence, Tan­coo said the Reg­istry and the Sup­port Cen­tre were deemed crit­i­cal projects when the mat­ter was brought to Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. Sub­se­quent­ly, re­ports of sex­u­al and phys­i­cal abuse against chil­dren at var­i­ous homes rocked the na­tion.

How­ev­er, Tan­coo said 14 months af­ter the mat­ter was brought to Par­lia­ment, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert con­firmed that the monies were spent on gov­ern­ment trav­el.

"The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance sends this note to the Par­lia­ment to tell us that $2 mil­lion was not spent on these projects but the mon­ey was used in­stead to fa­cil­i­tate amongst oth­er things, the trav­el of the Prime Min­is­ter and his en­tourage to the US, and for hir­ing 8 per­sons for three months," Tan­coo re­vealed.

He added: "We would have gone through the ini­tial ex­pen­di­ture items in de­tail be­fore it was ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment. But when the line Min­is­ter changes its use, there is no pro­vi­sion which al­lows us to de­mand ex­pla­na­tions about why the mon­ey was not used for its ap­proved pur­pose and why what it was used for was not bud­get­ed for." 

He not­ed that Im­bert has sup­plied ex­pla­na­tions for trans­fers for 2022 and the doc­u­ment stat­ed that over $842 mil­lion was not spent on what it was ap­proved to be spent on.

He lament­ed the crime sit­u­a­tion say­ing monies were al­lo­cat­ed for the in­stal­la­tion of CCTV cam­eras yet the cam­eras re­main dys­func­tion­al

"Our coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the worse crime wave we have ever had in our his­to­ry. In Oc­to­ber 2021 at the start of the fi­nan­cial year, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty pro­posed and was ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment to spend $31,950,000 in the award of a con­tract for con­nec­tiv­i­ty to in­stall CCTV cam­eras which the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty de­clared was crit­i­cal in the fight against crime," Tan­coo said.

He added: "Four­teen months af­ter we are be­ing told that CCTV cam­eras were not in­stalled 'due to a de­lay in the award of the con­tract for con­nec­tiv­i­ty”. No fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion was pro­vid­ed. You will re­call that in April 2022, the same Min­is­ter con­fessed that 733 CCTV cam­eras out of 1796 were not work­ing. By the end of the fi­nan­cial year, he ad­vised that 673 cam­eras were still not work­ing or not work­ing prop­er­ly. But he claimed that his Min­istry was in the process of up­grad­ing and ex­pand­ing the CCTV net­work.

Tan­coo al­so ques­tioned why the $10 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ships was “repri­ori­tised” and used in­stead to pay for tele­phone bills and sta­tion­ary in­stead.

"Why was $10 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for the ten­der­ing process for the project Health In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem for the Ari­ma and Point Fortin Hos­pi­tals not com­plet­ed? Why un­der the Min­istry of Labour was there an un­der­bud­get­ing of $7.5 mil­lion for Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co­op­er­a­tive Stud­ies?" Tan­coo asked. He said for­eign ex­change re­serves have con­tin­ued to plum­met.

"One of the much-tout­ed projects was the Farm School an­nounced in Oc­to­ber 2021, which was sup­posed to en­cour­age youth in­volve­ment in agri­cul­ture as a busi­ness, but this has been aban­doned," Tan­coo said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to con­firm whether the $2 mil­lion meant for the es­tab­lish­ment of a Chil­dren's Reg­istry and Child Sup­port Cen­tre was in­stead spent on gov­ern­ment trav­el. How­ev­er, mes­sages left for him went unan­swered.