Dennis: I saw no evidence of zipline project restarting

Political leader of the Tobago PNM and former chief secretary Ancil Dennis said he “saw no real evidence" of attempts by OCT Enterprises to restart the zipline project between 2015 and 2017.

“I’m not saying it didn’t happen," he added. "I just simply did not find any evidence of such.”

Dennis was an assemblyman from 2013 to 2021.

He was responding to the claims in a media release on Sunday in which OCT Enterprises said it was not to blame for a zipline's not being built.

The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) is suing the company for failing to deliver on the $2.5 million zipline in the Main Ridge Forest Reserve. Dennis initiated the legal action.

Former tourism secretary Tracy Davidson-Celestine announced the project in 2015. OCT Enterprises was contracted to build a 1.5km zipline.

The project was never delivered, despite THA funds being released. The company says it tried to restart the project twice between 2015 and 2017.

The zipline became controversial during the January 2021 THA elections, when the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) accused Davidson-Celestine and the former PNM regime of mismanaging the project.

Dennis said when he became Chief Secretary in May 2020, he instructed the administrator of tourism to get in touch with the company after realising no efforts were being made to do so.

“I was told for many months that they could not get in touch with the company. Eventually I decided to try for myself, and I had my personal staff use the same contact information on file to get in touch with the company, and they were successful almost immediately.”

He said a Zoom meeting was held on November 2, 2020, which included two representatives of the company, directors Richard Graham and Darren Hreniuk. Dennis, the senior state counsel, the legal officer in the Division of Tourism, the chief administrator and the administrator of tourism represented the THA.

“Based on the information we had, and the research done, we went to the meeting with a clear position that the company must restart and complete this project without any additional payments from the THA. That is because, based on the information we had, we felt that the THA (had) already paid enough and upheld its requirements in the contract, and therefore it was the company who should now deliver the project without any additional money.

"That information was also put to them in writing after the meeting. As a matter of fact, it was a letter of demand from our legal personnel.”

He said the company made no commitment to deliver or restart the project and therefore, on legal advice, he decided to sue the company. That decision, he said, was made in May 2021 and the matter was filed in the High Court in November 2021.

Since then, the THA has received freezing orders for the bank accounts of the directors, Graham and Hreniuk, in TT and the British Virgin Islands (BVI), where the company is based. The freezing orders restrain them from removing from TT, the BVI, and the US assets in a First Citizens Bank account in Scarborough and a First Caribbean International Bank account in Tortola, up to US$500,000, the value of the THA’s claim for breach of contract.

In Sunday's statement, Hreniuk denied claims by Chief Secretary Farley Augustine on November 18 that the zipline company did not exist. Augustine said a thorough search was done on the company registry in the BVI but nothing was found.

Dennis called on the chief secretary and his team to desist from making “misleading and erroneous statements or desist from telling outright lies concerning this situation so that the waters would not be muddied.

“The matter is before the court – the chips would fall where they may. It is my hope and expectation that the THA is able to recover monies spent on this project or perhaps, I don’t know if the company would now be willing to deliver this project without any additional resources from the THA. But that is a matter for the courts to decide now.”