Police officers were called in yesterday to take possession of all vehicles and equipment belonging to the Agricultural Society of T&T currently in use by the now defunct executive. This action comes one day after High Court judge Frank Seepersad quashed the ASTT elections. The judge also ordered fresh elections be held in 35 days after he ruled in favour of ASTT members—Sylvester Pino and Hassanali Yatali—who had challenged the elections in a judicial review lawsuit.
Yesterday Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj confirmed he had instructed his permanent secretary (PS) to call in the police to seize the society’s vehicles and equipment. “I have given instruction to the PS that she contact the police to seize the two vehicles that belong to and are the property of the ASTT as well as the tractors which are the property of the ASTT which are being used by persons who now have no legal standing.
“The PS has issued those letters today (yesterday) and I hope the police acts with alacrity,” Maharaj told the T&T Guardian. Maharaj, in a telephone interview, is expected to meet at 2 pm today with Pino, a representative from the former ASTT executive and the ministry official who will be in charge of conducting the elections. Calls to former ASTT president Nawaz Karim’s cellphone went to voicemail yesterday when the T&T Guardian tried to contact him.
Maharaj said the judgment gave some instructive directions on how public money had to be accounted for and how it was being spent by agencies that fell under ministries. He said he had sent a copy of the judgment to Finance Minister Larry Howai for assistance in crafting a policy to provide guidelines for the ASTT on how its finances should be expended in future.
The minister said he was optimistic the new elections would produce a truly representative, democratically elected team, whereby free and fair elections would be held, truly representative of the agricultural sector. He said he hoped the newly-elected body would, as its first order of business, conduct a thorough financial audit at ASTT. Maharaj explained the ASTT, under the Act, was supposed to have representatives from the sugar industry, the cocoa industry and the coffee industries.
However, he said, there were other commodities now that were equally important as those and the ASTT composition in terms of those requirements from the different sectors might not be as suitable today.