A Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment will au­dit the per­for­mance of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Gov­ern­ment’s US lob­by­ist firm The­Group DC, to see what ben­e­fits T&T re­ceived af­ter the firm, which was en­gaged in 2016, was al­leged­ly paid US $12 mil­lion, says MP Dave Tan­coo.

And probes will al­so be launched in­to var­i­ous is­sues - in­clud­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s roles in the “at­tack on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.”

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s UNC me­dia brief­ing, Tan­coo, the Fi­nance spokesman, “I have my leader’s ap­proval to tell you when we form the gov­ern­ment in a few months, those re­spon­si­ble for de­stroy­ing T&T - who presided over the fla­grant wastage of your mon­ey with­out build­ing a school, po­lice sta­tion or putting med­i­cine in hos­pi­tals, those guilty of mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice - will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and brought to jus­tice.

“A UNC gov­ern­ment will en­sure that those PNM big­wigs who have en­gaged in wan­ton cor­rup­tion, rob­bing cit­i­zens, will be made to pay for their trans­gres­sions.”

Among ar­eas to be probed will be the Forex cri­sis. Tan­coo claimed while small/medi­um busi­ness­es strug­gle to get Forex, “this PNM has been con­ve­nient­ly ship­ping mil­lions of US dol­lars to PNM friends.”

He claimed US$12m (TT$ 81.3m) was spent on the Wash­ing­ton-based lob­by­ing firm, The­Group DC, con­tract­ed in Oc­to­ber 2016 “at a ridicu­lous rate of US$100,000 per month with no spe­cif­ic mea­sur­able terms of ref­er­ence.”

“Where is the proof that T&T has ben­e­fit­ted sig­nif­i­cant­ly from this lav­ish spend­ing? As cit­i­zens live in fear of the con­se­quences of the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-Trump rhetoric since 2015, and es­pe­cial­ly at the risk of the loss of Drag­on gas. I chal­lenge Min­is­ter Im­bert to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive break­down of all the ad­vice and re­ports that this com­pa­ny has pro­vid­ed. What spe­cif­ic for­eign in­vest­ments have they brought to earn US$100,000 month­ly?

“Prove that the PNM Gov­ern­ment didn’t just throw away US$12 mil­lion dol­lars to a po­lit­i­cal friend. Tell us ex­act­ly what ‘op­por­tu­ni­ties’ were cre­at­ed oth­er than a trip to the US by the Prime Min­is­ter to sit in an of­fice and make a phone call to a state de­part­ment.”

Tan­coo said a UNC gov­ern­ment will au­dit the per­for­mance of the com­pa­ny and pro­vide to the pub­lic the in­for­ma­tion he asked for.

“This free-for-all must end,” he said.

Tan­coo par­tic­u­lar­ly slammed Im­bert as, “the same man, who shame­less­ly boasts that he’s done a good job and wants an­oth­er five years time to fin­ish the job ... whose per­son­al de­ci­sions and vin­dic­tive­ness has cost tax­pay­ers mil­lions in fines and fees, but who re­mains pro­tect­ed by the PNM boys’ club.”

De­spite Im­bert’s ex­pla­na­tion on the is­sue with the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, Tan­coo claimed $2.6 bil­lion is still un­rec­on­ciled from T&T’s 2023 ac­counts, “cur­rent­ly not in­clud­ed in T&T’s na­tion­al ac­counts and there­fore is miss­ing from the ac­counts.” He said claimed the sit­u­a­tion caused 2024 ac­counts to al­so be “frozen.”

Tan­coo said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Im­bert isn’t be­cause of that mon­ey but for Im­bert’s role “ ... in the at­tack on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, in­clud­ing the mak­ing of a per­son­al tele­phone call, at­tacks in Par­lia­ment, and sub­se­quent per­se­cu­tion of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in court ... ”

Tan­coo added, “With­in days of a UNC Cab­i­net be­ing sworn in, the UNC gov­ern­ment will fa­cil­i­tate a meet­ing be­tween the Fi­nance Min­istry, Cen­tral Bank and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and work out a plan for prop­er au­dit­ing of the mon­ey cur­rent­ly not in the ac­counts ... A UNC gov­ern­ment will com­mis­sion an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the role of Mr Im­bert, ex­act­ly as de­mand­ed by UNC’s leader ... ”

Probe in­to $5b in con­tracts

Tan­coo al­so warned of a probe in­to the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor’s 2023/24 find­ing that $5 bil­lion in gov­ern­ment con­tracts were not award­ed by pub­lic bod­ies via ful­ly com­pet­i­tive ten­der/use of pro­cure­ment meth­ods.

“These are con­tracts award­ed un­der PNM min­is­ters, PNM hand­picked ap­point­ed di­rec­tors who will­ing­ly broke the law. Has the min­is­ter done any­thing to plug this mas­sive cor­rup­tion?”

He said a UNC gov­ern­ment will strength­en pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion “to elim­i­nate the cor­rup­tion the PNM’s now en­gaged in” and will pro­vide the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor’s of­fice with nec­es­sary re­sources “.. to en­sure that a com­pre­hen­sive list of these and sub­se­quent con­tracts award­ed in vi­o­la­tion of the law is pro­duced and those en­gaged in break­ing the law are bought to jus­tice – both PNM of­fi­cials and the PNM fi­nanciers, friends and fam­i­ly in­volved in this mas­sive cor­rup­tion scan­dal. I pre­dict PNM big­wigs, board mem­bers, maybe even min­is­ters, in­volved in this cor­rup­tion scam will find them­selves in jail.”

Tan­coo called on Im­bert for an­swers on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2023 re­port find­ing that “known ex­pen­di­ture of $1 bil­lion couldn’t be ver­i­fied.”

“The vast ma­jor­i­ty of this mys­tery ex­pen­di­ture, $672,827,183.79, was un­ac­count­ed for with­in the Fi­nance Min­istry head­ed by Im­bert ... Who’s mind­ing the store at the min­istry? Mon­ey’s miss­ing ... I chal­lenge Im­bert to say ex­act­ly what he’s done about this. Who’s been held ac­count­able? What mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure it doesn’t hap­pen again?”