Mark: PNM building ‘highway to nowhere’

OPPOSITION Senator Wade Mark on Tuesday said the UNC no longer believes the extension of the Churchill Roosevelt Highway from Cumuto to Manzanilla is “a highway to nowhere.”

He claimed the project is now one that is designed to benefit friends and financiers of the PNM. “This is a (PNM) Highway to Heaven”

Mark was speaking during debate in the Senate on a motion to approve a decision by President Christine Kangaloo on the acquisition of land for construction of the Churchill Roosevelt Highway Extension to Manzanilla (Phase One) from Cumuto Junction to Toco Main Road.

While the Opposition supports construction of new highways and their associated socio-economic benefits, Mark wondered who stands to benefit from this project.

Mark questioned who were the people that this highway would bring relief to. He asked if shopping malls being built in the area were owned by PNM financiers. He claimed a property in the area belonged to the family of a former PNM government minister.

Mark observed that of the 32 parcels of land the motion covered, some had the names of people “dead, buried and mingling with the angels.”

He claimed there were PNM MPs and senators who were in business deals with people on lands who were in the area.

Mark also alleged the cost to build the highway extension was $1.7 billion and one contractor on the project was paid $200 million. He said, “I am asking questions. These are not stories. These are realities.”

In response, Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan said, “True to form, Senator Mark came to tarnish the reputation of citizens.”

Sinanan reminded senators how the PP dealt with land acquistion for the extension of the Solomon Hochoy Highway from Golconda to Point Fortin.

“What they did was employ Nidco (National Infrastructure Development Company) to hire some consultants to negotiate (with property owners in the area).” Sinanan said Nidco signed off on the final payment to property owners to give up their lands for that project.

The PNM budgeted land acquisition for that project at $400 million in 2009-2010, before demitting office on May 24, 2010.

Sinanan said, “By 2011, a Cabinet note was passed by the then (PP) government for $800 million (for land acquisition).”

By 2015, he continued, 50 per cent of the land was acquired, $512 million of the $800 million was spent and six people took the PP to court claiming they got letters from Nidco to buy their lands for $661 million.

This pushed the money spent on land acquisition for the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to over $1 billion

Sinanan said, “I know Senator Mark and his team (UNC) knows everything about how to get money for land.” The Senate passed the motion and the next sitting has been adjourned to a date to be fixed.