Mark: $1.9m land deal proves Government's reluctance to proclaim Procurement Act

Opposition Senator Wade Mark has alleged that a top public official had bought a piece of land for $1.9 million in 2009 outside Sangre Grande which the Government since acquired to build a bridge over a diverted river course.

He suggested profiteering in this land-deal was amongst the reasons why the Government did not with to fully proclaim the Public Procurement and Disposal of Property Act.

Mark was speaking at the Opposition's weekly press briefing on Sunday.

Saying the UNC had unearthed a deed dated January 19, 2009, for the original land purchase, Mark asked how much the official had allegedly received for the sale of the land and whether he had been part of the deliberations on the land's fate.

Likening the new Balisier House to the biblical Tower of Babel and PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley to the biblical King Nimrod, Mark alleged, "That explains why the modern Nimrod does not want to proclaim the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act.

Mark then alleged that cranes have been spotted busily clearing a piece of land in east Trinidad near the three-road junction of the Eastern Main Road, Guaico Road and Railway Road, near to where phase three of the Churchill Roosevelt Highway extension (to Manzanilla) is set to pass.

He said the cranes carried the logo of a firm owned by a known businessman.

He alleged that a media report in August 2021 had said the businessman had bought the firm for $30 million, but that the accounts of the parent company that had sold it had recorded a figure of just $17 million.

Mark queried this by saying if the parent company had bought its 60 per cent stake for $22 million in 2006, the firm's value back then was calculated at $37 million, but it had ultimately been sold to the businessman for just $17 million.

"There is something in the mortar beside the pestle," Mark charged.

Saying the National Insurance Board (NIB) owns 20 per cent of the parent company, he implied the NIB had suffered some loss as he declared the Treasury was being raped and pillaged. He said that no raffle or donation sheet exercise was able to raise an alleged sum of $100 million to build Balisier House, as he challenged the PNM to publicise a list of its donors. Mark called on the police to probe the funding of this construction.

Newsday telephoned the public official but could not contact him, and the Prime Minister likewise did not reply to inquiries Newsday sent to him by text.