Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris has dared sit­ting In­fra­struc­ture Sec­re­tary Trevor James to present any ev­i­dence he claims to have re­gard­ing an al­leged mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar road con­struc­tion scan­dal to the po­lice, in­sist­ing that threats of jail time “mean noth­ing.”

Mor­ris is­sued the chal­lenge while speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Ma­son Hall on Mon­day night. He was re­spond­ing to al­le­ga­tions by James of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in road con­struc­tion con­tracts award­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“All of a sud­den he turn po­lice. I in­vite you to take those mat­ters to the po­lice be­cause you will make their job very easy. I sure you not com­ing out from there,” Mor­ris told sup­port­ers.

James, a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) can­di­date, has ac­cused the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion of wrong­do­ing in road works and sug­gest­ed those in­volved could face jail time. He first raised the al­le­ga­tions at a TPP po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Sun­day in Mo­ri­ah, ac­cus­ing for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis of hand­pick­ing a sin­gle con­trac­tor and award­ing mul­ti­ple road con­tracts with­out ten­der­ing.

James claimed that 25 con­tracts, all to one com­pa­ny and to­talling more than $58 mil­lion, were signed off on De­cem­ber 18, 2020 — just weeks be­fore the Jan­u­ary 2021 THA elec­tion. He de­scribed the is­sue as “un­fin­ished busi­ness” and warned that To­bag­o­ni­ans must not for­get what he called se­ri­ous wrong­do­ing.

Mor­ris dis­missed the claims, say­ing sim­i­lar ac­cu­sa­tions had been made be­fore with­out lead­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tions or charges. He sug­gest­ed the al­le­ga­tions are be­ing re­vived be­cause the THA elec­tion is ap­proach­ing.

“Four years lat­er, Trevor, with all the in­for­ma­tion you couldn’t get any in­ves­ti­ga­tion, you couldn’t cause any in­ves­ti­ga­tion. But be­cause an elec­tion is on the cusp and now all yuh un­der pres­sure, now yuh say­ing peo­ple go­ing to jail,” Mor­ris said.

Mor­ris al­so raised con­cerns about con­trac­tors af­fect­ed by what he de­scribed as a “bo­gus au­dit,” which he claimed led to com­pa­nies be­ing black­list­ed and work­ers los­ing jobs. He al­leged that con­trac­tors were promised pay­ment but lat­er de­nied it, adding that ques­tions re­main unan­swered years lat­er.

“He promised to pay them. Imag­ine he gives them a con­fir­ma­tion date, and then sud­den­ly he de­cides he will not pay them. Up to this day, we are ask­ing to see the au­dit,” Mor­ris said.

He fur­ther ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fail­ing to pub­lish the au­dit that al­leged­ly jus­ti­fied the black­list­ing of con­trac­tors, de­spite re­peat­ed calls for trans­paren­cy.

“Bring the au­dit. Take To­ba­go peo­ple’s mon­ey and let all of us see the au­dit. Far­ley, keep hid­ing the au­dit,” Mor­ris said, re­fer­ring to a se­nior of­fi­cial.

Ac­cord­ing to Mor­ris, the lack of trans­paren­cy has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about ac­count­abil­i­ty and fair­ness in the han­dling of pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture projects. He al­so claimed that the mat­ter in­volv­ing James is al­ready be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau, though he did not pro­vide de­tails on the sta­tus of any probe.

The al­le­ga­tions come amid height­ened po­lit­i­cal ten­sion as par­ties in­ten­si­fy cam­paign­ing ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tions.