Minority leader sends pre-action letters to THA

The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Minority Leader has served two pre-action protocol letters on the THA's administration.

Repeating his call for Tobagonians to "wake up," Kelvon Morris said the letters were sent to the Secretary for the Division of Infrastructure, Trevor James and Assemblyman Zorisha Hackett.

Morris made the disclosure whilst speaking during Wednesday’s news conference at his office in Scarborough.

He said: “Tobago, we have a problem. We have a problem with corruption, and you’ll think that an administration that came on the heels of telling Tobagonians that the previous administration was corrupt, would have come and done better. But we have in front of us right now, I can say without contradiction, the most corrupt administration to pass through the history of the Tobago House of Assembly.”

He said he follows certain matters and goes to the assembly legislature asking questions based on information he has in his possession. He said two issues he has been focusing on were the school repair programme and the road resurfacing programme.

“In those two instances, I have asked – I wasn’t getting the answers through the assembly – so I filed two FOI’s (Freedom of Information Act) using the Freedom of Information Act to get the responses and I’m asking simple questions.”

He said he has been asking several questions since December 12, 2022.

“What was the process of tendering, how did you go about choosing your contractors, let me see the evaluation report, let me see the financials of these companies that you said had to have certain financial criteria. To this day it has been absolute silence.”

He said he has had enough and as a result, he has instructed his lawyers and has received the pre-action protocol letters.

“My lawyers have sent two pre-action protocol letters out.

"These are pre-action protocol letters in the matters of a proposed claim for judicial review pursuant to section 39 of the Freedom of Information act and what these letters are calling for them to do is produce this information that I have been asking for six months.”

He said they are duty-bound to produce the information by Friday or else go to court.

“When we go to court, they would be utilizing your money, wasting it to protect their dirty deeds. So I am telling you make sure they don’t take your money and go to court with your money to prevent me from getting the information to protect your interest. Let them provide the information.”

He added: “Tobago, we have a problem, Tobago, you cannot stay asleep and all they’re telling you is that they’re minding your business, Tobago they are lying to you. They are minding their own because they’re lining their pockets as we here suffering.”