Moonilal: Sinanan transporting radar parts improper

OROPOUCHE East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal said it was improper and possibly unlawful for Works and Transport Minister Rogan Sinanan to have travelled with radar parts for the port. He was speaking yesterday in the House on a motion of no confidence against Sinanan.

He said there was a problem with several ministers in this administration overreaching and read a letter dated April 1, 2018 where the Port Authority write to the comptroller of customs and excise informing the comptroller than Sinanan was travelling with a radar system for the TT Spirit on a Caribbean Airlines flight.

“But how he reach there? Is a rear view mirror for a car?” Moonilal said with a diplomatic passport Sinanan would not have been searched and questioned who bought the radar system and how it was purchased. “A minister ought not to be involved that way.” He said this act was improper at least and may be unethical or unlawful.

Sinanan in an interview with the media said he was coming through Miami out of Los Angeles and the port needed a radar the same day but it would have taken a week to ship. He said the port officials called him and said they would buy a ticket for someone to bring it but he volunteered to bring it “because I want to see the boat back up and running.” Without the radar the boat was down for a day, he explained. Sinanan said the parts were purchased by the port, delivered to him by the company, customs checked the box and the port collected it at the airport when he arrived. He reported this was the only time he did this and he saw nothing improper or unethical. “I knew what I did was in the interest of the port and getting the boat back up.”

Also in his contribution Moonilal expressed concern about the Galleons Passage and whether it would be able to handle the waters between Port of Spain and Scarborough. On Sinanan he said the minister being unfit for office was the fault of the prime minister. He also said if Sinanan had a problem with UNC Deputy Political Leader Jearlean John, who had taken him to task over the seabridge, he should meet her in the gayelle.

“She will chew him up and spit him out.” He recalled he saw Sinanan on the TT Spirit “like Brad Pitt in Titanic” but Laventille West MP Fitzgerald Hinds would later correct him that it was Leonardo DiCaprio in the role and not Pitt.