MP: Not a fish sold at Carenage depot

EXACTLY a month after the Prime Minister was photographed in the guise of a fishmonger, holding up a fish for sale at the launch of the Carenage Fishing Depot, not one fish has been sold there, Oropouche West MP Vidia Gayadeen-Gopeesingh claims.

In a statement, Gayadeen-Gopeesingh strongly condemns Dr Rowley’s allegedly misleading remarks about the depot, including his claim that the former regime had left it to rot.

The depot is in Rowley’s Diego Martin West constituency.

“The story being peddled by the Prime Minister is rife with misinformation,” she said, adding that the depot has a sordid history.

“Originally a PNM (People’s National Movement) project, in 2009 more than $19 million was spent to produce nothing but a shell. Naturally, this raised red flags and was the subject of an investigation during the People’s Partnership government.

“Yet the biggest question we should be asking the PNM is how a facility originally pegged for $20 million opened with a $28 million price tag? Where did the difference go?”

The MP alleged the PNM had tried to cover its tracks and questioned the ultimate fate of the inquiry.

“Am I to consider it a mere coincidence that as soon as the PNM came to power the findings of the investigation into this project vanished without a trace? Where is the final report?” She called for a transparent and detailed list of the costs for this project.

Despite the project’s high cost, she alleged a lack of any sound idea as to how it might turn a profit. “Dr Rowley proclaimed that it was a state-of-the-art facility ideal for tourism and modelled after Oistins Fish Fry in Barbados.”