JSC told records lacking for Pt Fortin Highway project

The Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Land and Physical Infrastructure was hindered on Wednesday in its examination of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension to Point Fortin (SSHEPF) project by a lack of proper documentation by the executing state bodies.

The committee met to question officials of the National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) and Ministry of Works and Transport (MoWT) about the project.

However, as the officials had not been working on the project over a decade ago, they had to rely on documentation.

This proved a challenge as the officials lamented several times there was no record to explain certain actions taken or who authorised them.

"There are areas where one would want to question the process (but) the lack of information, lack of documentation, really hampers you from making categoric statements because you are simply unaware of exactly what would have happened," MoWT permanent secretary Sonia Francis-Yearwood said.

In one instance, the officials were unable to explain why, in a matter of days, the government stopped Nidco from sourcing funding for the multi-billion-dollar project and decided to fund it from the treasury.

Nidco chairman Herbert George said all he found was a board minute which said then Works and Infrastructure Minister Winston Dookeran told the company's then president that $1.5 billion from treasury deposits would be made available to pay for the work by Construtora OAS Ltd (OAS).

Francis-Yearwood said the ministry did not have any records to show if this was a Cabinet-approved decision.

"We have not found such a document. We can continue to look, but at this time we have not found such a document."

Asked by JSC member Symon de Nobriga if, in the officials' professional opinion, it was best practice that such decisions were made orally without documentation, George said: "All I could say is, if it were happening today, we would get a document from the Ministry of Finance – it might be via the line ministry – telling us that funding for the project would be provided in the manner described here, and there was no longer a need to continue to source funding from the sources we had started with.

"That seems to be a good way to do it."

Neither Nidco nor the MoWT had documentation to show whether OAS had permission, apart from a limited letter to proceed, to mobilise for substantive work months before the contract was signed in July 2011.

The recurring motif also came up as the committee posed other questions like those surrounding the move to increase the advance payment to OAS from ten to 20 per cent.

Commenting on the company's early mobilisation, JSC member Renuka Sagramsingh-Sooklal questioned what emboldened OAS to attempt to start the project ahead of time.

"Doesn't that suggest to you that outside of Nidco, perhaps OAS is having conversations or receiving instructions from another entity or another person or another persons (sic) that they deem are in a position to give them that instruction and go ahead or greenlight to act in the manner in which they did?"

Based on his records, George said, he had no doubt the Brazilian construction company indeed had "enablers that were maybe powerful.

"Whoever spoke to OAS must have been...somebody with authority to be able to give OAS the go-ahead. I mean, how could you be mobilising equipment onto Golconda when you do not have that bit of paper in your hand, not even that limited notice to proceed?"

Noticeably absent from the sitting were opposition members of the JSC Barry Padarath and Anil Roberts. They were also absent from the first session last month, as the opposition decided not to take part in what it believes is a witchhunt by the People's National Movement administration on the project started by the People's Partnership administration.

On November 1, the Prime Minister announced the project marred in controversy owing to cost overruns, delays, and alleged secret meetings among other issues would be sent before the JSC.

The committee is chaired by Independent Senator Deoroop Teemal and includes D'Abadie/O'Meara MP Lisa Morris-Julian, Senator Muhammad Yunus Ibrahim and Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards who was absent.