Maharaj slams Persad-Bissessar's 'fake oil' allegations against A&V

ATTORNEY Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj said the termination of A&V Oil and Gas company by Petrotrin was influenced by politics and motivated by the Opposition to “bring down the Prime Minister.”

A&V owned by Hanif Nazim Baksh, a man the Prime Minister acknowledged as his friend, recently won its arbitration case against the now defunct state-owned company, Petrotrin. That case could cause taxpayers of Trinidad and Tobago the sum of $1 billion in settlement but Maharaj said nothing that happens now could totally compensate for that injustice the company and its owner suffered on the basis of a reckless statement made by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar using incomplete information from an internal audit report.

At a virtual news conference on Wednesday, Maharaj charged, “Her (Persad-Bissessar’s) whole motivation from the start was to use this issue as a political issue to try and bring down the Prime Minister.

“She obviously saw this as raw politics and did not appear to care for whether the allegations were true or false. It suited her politics to be able to go at the Prime Minister and obviously did not care whether, in doing that, it would have damaged and possibly destroyed Mr Baksh’s reputation and destroy the commercial reputation of A&V.

"This was not right. It was wrong. It was cheap politics.”

Maharaj said it was most puzzling for him after 50 years in legal practice how a state company, without any substantial evidence could implicate a man and his company on her allegations of being paid hefty sums for supplying “fake oil” to Petrotrin. To go so far as to break and destroy the company and the lives of people.

He suggested Government use the matter to "reign in" rogue state enterprises and employ measures to ensure they are accountable and face some recourse when they do wrong.

On Wednesday, Maharaj affirmed Petrotrin’s investigation was only triggered by Persad-Bissessar allegations of fraud and misconduct made at a political meeting in September 2017.

Maharaj said Petrotrin never gave A&V the opportunity to be heard or debunk the "unsubstantiated" claims even though the contract between the two parties said, in case of a dispute, resolutions should be attempted by mediation or arbitration .

Instead, he said, then chairman Wilfred Espinet implicitly supported Persad-Bissessar’s statement and embarked on an investigation. This, in spite of his professional advice that the termination of the contract would result in an expensive legal battle for taxpayers as A&V would be vindicated.

He said the public should be given an opportunity to assess whether Petrotrin was justified in terminating A&V’s contract and seeking legal recourse by having the arbitration documents laid in the Parliament.

“I am of the opinion that the facts and circumstances which led to this arbitration are important for members of the public to recall because those facts and circumstances show that politics influenced the investigations which were conducted by Petrotrin against A&V Oil and Gas Ltd and which investigation led to Petrotrin terminating the contract with A&V.”

A number of libel claims against the Leader of the Opposition filed by Baksh and A &V for damages and punitive damages are pending before the High Court.

Maharaj said she was given an opportunity to withdraw the allegations, apologise and make an offer to pay damages for libel to his reputation.

Yet, he said Persad-Bissessar was continuing with her claims – the latest being on Monday June 14, when she questioned whether Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi “threw the case to give Keith Rowley’s bestie $1 billion.”

Maharaj, a former attorney general himself, defended Al-Rawi saying neither him not the Cabinet were involved in the matter.

“Instead of making an apology in light of the publication that A&V won its arbitration, she again referred to the ‘100 million fake oil.’

“She tried to give the impression the arbitration was won on a technicality because the AG did not do a proper case and supply all the relevant evidence.

“The AG was not responsible for the evidence provided in the arbitration. The AG represents the State. Petrotrin was not under the jurisdiction of the Office of the AG. The AG had nothing to do with this case.”