PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is expected to submit its report next month on its forensic probe into alleged impropriety at Petrotrin’s Southwest Soldado project involving breach of Petrotrin’s rules, Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine says.
“And if wrongdoing is found, those persons who have done wrong will face the courts and the justice system,” he told Parliament yesterday.
Responding to an Opposition PNM motion by MP Paula Gopee-Scoon on the issue, Ramnarine said a note to the Petrotrin board with recommendations on the alleged issue was signed by Ken Allum, who was president up to February 29, 2010, and the note had been seconded by Steve Baldeosingh.
Both of them have since retired, Ramnarine said.
Gopee-Scoon said Petrotrin breached rules by giving advance payments to the Mexican company of Maritima Mareska. She also cited an alleged illegal advance payment of US$1.25 million which was not in accordance with the contract, and an alleged transfer of US$750,000 into two private bank accounts in Scotiabank, Maraval.
She alleged Petrotrin chairman Lindsay Gillette was the “mastermind” behind the alleged breach and that there had been concerns at Petrotrin board level about it. She called for Gillette and Petrotrin’s president Khalid Hassanali to be suspended pending probe of the matter. She suggested the transaction be probed by parliament’s Energy Committee.
Ramnarine, accusing the PNM of inconsistency and “bipolarity,” said the PNM didn’t want to wait for the police report on the Petrotrin issue, yet wanted to wait for the police report on the Emailgate issue.
He said the Petrotrin matter came to the knowledge of Cabinet only after reports in the media in March. He said it was reported to the police on April 17, and PwC was also engaged to do a forensic investigation of the issue.
Ramnarine said the PwC report would go to Petrotrin’s vice president in June and the minister instructed that copies be sent to him, the ministry’s permanent secretary and the finance minister.
He pointed out that on March 6, 2012, when the event was said to have occurred, Hassanali had come into office just a few days before on February 29, succeeding former president Allum.
Gopee-Scoon, in her argument, accused Gillette and Hassanali of operating Petrotrin in an unorthodox way. She claimed officials “duped” Petrotrin’s vice president of finance into signing for payments. She said that the Mexican company hadn’t qualified and had obtained a “sweetheart of a deal.” She claimed instructions to pay the US funds into the private bank accounts came from one Jeff Clark whom Petrotrin later said was not a company agent.
“This is theft of public funds,” she said, adding that the police should have been called in a long time ago.
Gopee-Scoon called for scrutiny of Petrotrin’s Dexter Daniel, NP chairman Neil Gosine and the head of the Bankers’ Insurance.
She said the PNM’s boycott of Parliament didn’t mean they weren’t representing constituents and she promised the PNM would “run dem (PP) out of office, run-off (proposal) or no run off.”
Emailgate motion turned down
Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner tried unsuccessfully to debate a motion in Parliament yesterday on the “cloud” over the Integrity Commission following the resignation of its deputy chairman Sebastien Ventour. Warner wanted to debate if the IC had the ability to probe issues independently. House Speaker Wade Mark said the motion didn’t qualify under Standing Order 17 and advised him to refile it under Standing Order 35.
Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan, replying to queries from Warner, detailed the latest mosquito-borne virus, the zika, whose symptoms are mild headache, rash, fever, malaise, conjunctivitis, joint, back and eye pain. It lasts five days and there is no vaccine for it.