A for­mer di­rec­tor of the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T Lim­it­ed (SporTT) has claimed that he and his 13 fel­low for­mer board mem­bers were ob­lig­at­ed to fa­cil­i­tate a $34 mil­lion con­tract for the con­tro­ver­sial Life Sport pro­gramme, which sub­se­quent­ly failed. 

Tes­ti­fy­ing in the state com­pa­ny’s on­go­ing breach of fidu­cia­ry du­ty case against the for­mer board mem­bers be­fore Jus­tice Ricky Rahim at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, Tues­day, ac­coun­tant Matthew Quam­i­na claimed that he and his for­mer col­leagues were in­struct­ed that SporTT was mere­ly the pay­ment “agent or provider” for the Min­istry of Sport. 

Quam­i­na main­tained that the min­istry and a com­mit­tee of of­fi­cials as­signed to the pro­gramme were re­spon­si­ble for all as­pects of it be­sides pay­ment of cred­i­tors. 

“Al­though the con­tract was in SporTT’s name, it was di­rect­ed by the Min­istry of Sport,” he said. 

He re­peat­ed­ly de­nied that he and his for­mer col­leagues were re­quired to deeply scru­ti­nise the con­tract. 

Quam­i­na al­so ad­mit­ted that be­fore the con­tract was signed, he did ques­tion whether it con­tained an “ex­it” clause. 

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that he did not fol­low up on whether such was in­clud­ed, as he said that was SporTT’s chief ex­ec­u­tive, John Mol­len­thiel, and the min­istry’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“It was not my role to see that con­tract,” he said. 

Deal­ing with a rec­om­men­da­tion that eBeam In­ter­act Lim­it­ed be giv­en the con­tract to ad­min­is­ter the nu­mer­a­cy and lit­er­a­cy and the in­ter­ac­tive tech­nol­o­gy com­po­nents of the oc­cu­pa­tion­al skills train­ing as­pect of the pro­gramme based on a sole se­lect ten­der, Quam­i­na sug­gest­ed that such was the min­istry’s sug­ges­tion. 

“The CEO would have been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the min­istry, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, and the min­is­ter,” he said. 

Quam­i­na al­so ad­mit­ted that af­ter eBeam failed to per­form its full oblig­a­tions and de­mand full pay­ment, he ques­tioned whether the con­tract could be amend­ed or ter­mi­nat­ed and le­gal ad­vice was sought. 

“Any rea­son­able per­son would have asked the ques­tions they did not ask two years be­fore,” he said. 

“The board would have been seek­ing clar­i­ty and guid­ance,” he added. 

Quam­i­na claimed that he and his col­leagues were not con­cerned by the ini­tial pro­pos­al sub­mit­ted by eBeam, which re­ferred to ser­vices to be of­fered to in­fants and teenagers when the pro­gramme was in­tend­ed for men aged 16 to 25. 

“Our role was not to ques­tion the Min­istry of Sport over a so­cial pro­gramme for the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty,” he said. 

Al­so tes­ti­fy­ing yes­ter­day was for­mer di­rec­tor Sabre­nah Khayyam, who cur­rent­ly serves as se­nior man­ag­er at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA). 

Like Quam­i­na and the oth­er for­mer di­rec­tors, who tes­ti­fied since last Fri­day, she de­nied any wrong­do­ing in re­la­tion to the con­tract. 

In the law­suit, the com­pa­ny is claim­ing that its for­mer board act­ed neg­li­gent­ly and reck­less­ly in en­ter­ing the con­tract. 

The de­fen­dants in the case are Mol­len­thiel and ex-di­rec­tors Se­bastien Padding­ton, Chela Lam­see-Ebanks, Reynold Bala, Nor­ris Blanc, Nisa Dass, Dr Anyl Gopeesingh, Cheemat­tee Mar­tin, Quam­i­na, An­nan Ram­nanans­ingh, Kent Sam­lal, Harnar­ine Seer­am Singh, and Mil­ton Si­boo. 

On Au­gust 22, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well re­ject­ed SporTT’s breach of con­tract case against eBeam but or­dered it to pay $30 mil­lion in resti­tu­tion as she ruled that it was un­just­ly en­riched for ser­vices it did not pro­vide.

While SporTT was seek­ing the en­tire val­ue of the con­tract, Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well de­duct­ed $4 mil­lion, which rep­re­sent­ed the nom­i­nal ser­vices in­clu­sive of the pro­cure­ment of equip­ment pro­vid­ed by eBeam. 

“It would be legal­ly un­just for the de­fen­dant to re­tain the ben­e­fit of $34 mil­lion when on­ly the min­i­mum val­ue, un­re­lat­ed to any sub­stan­tial de­liv­ery of the bar­gained-for ser­vices, was re­ceived by the claimant un­der the con­tract,” Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said. 

“The min­i­mal ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the de­fen­dant did not mean­ing­ful­ly meet the ben­e­fit that was in­tend­ed by the par­ties to be de­liv­ered to the claimant,” she added. 

eBeam still has the op­tion to ap­peal the out­come. 

SporTT has con­tend­ed that the case against eBeam has no bear­ing on the par­al­lel lit­i­ga­tion against the group. 

Col­in Kan­ga­loo, SC, John Lee, and Stephanie Moe are rep­re­sent­ing SporTT. 

The group’s lawyers in­clude Fyard Ho­sein, SC, An­tho­ny Vieira, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Ka­ri­na Singh, Ke­ston Lewis, Roger Kawals­ingh, Ravi Mungals­ingh, Tara Bhar­ios­ingh, Nicole de Ver­teuil-Milne, Adri­an Ra­moutar, Sush­ma Gopeesingh, Kami­ni Per­saud-Maraj, Neal Bis­nath, Ly­dia Men­don­ca, Richard Ja­gai, An­drea Bhag­wan­deen, and Dhar­men­dra Pun­wassee. 

The case is sched­uled to con­tin­ue lat­er to­day with the ev­i­dence of two more di­rec­tors.