Senior Political Reporter
The Opposition UNC will go to court to ascertain the level of security which TSTT’s acting CEO uses after the company refused to reveal the information, according to Princes Town MP Barry Padarath.
Meanwhile, San Juan/Barataria MP Saddam Hosein has revealed that a concerned employee of the Secondary Roads Rehabilitation Company (SRRC) wrote the Procurement Regulator last September about alleged corruption in SRRC.
Both MPs spoke during the UNC’s meeting in Princes Town on Monday evening.
Padarath said that after he spoke about TSTT spending $49,000 monthly for private security for the acting CEO, he filed a Freedom of Information request seeking the level of security the official was receiving. He said that was because the UNC was reliably informed that the CEO’s wife and children were also being provided with armed security.
He added, “But when I asked the level of security, they responded and told me to ‘take them to court’ as they believe they shouldn’t be sharing such sensitive information—$49,000 of taxpayers’ money a month to guard a man, he wife, his children, yet there’s no toilet paper in Princes Town Police Station.”
He said TSTT told him he could exercise his right for judicial review, “So we’re taking you to court.”
Padarath also claimed there was a Cabinet note to hire nine senior managers at WASA to “take the blows” when higher water rates are imposed. He claimed there was a plan to remove thousands of workers including two who are former PNM candidates from 2020.
Hosein cited a seven-page September 2023 letter from a concerned SRRC employee to Procurement Regulator Beverly Khan. He said it alleged collusion, price fixing, and bid rigging on over $30 million road paving projects at SRRC.
“That audit now on into SRRC must be made public as we want to know where the money gone. We’re hearing things about selective contractors being given contracts, inflated prices and a 15 per cent kickback,” he alleged.
Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh also put forward an allegation saying he had reliable information that the clean-up of the oil spill in Tobago would cost taxpayers over US $50 million.