Panday questions timing of Jeremie’s security threat claim

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day is ques­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty amid con­cerns sur­round­ing pro­cure­ment and hous­ing con­tracts, while al­so rais­ing con­cerns about the tim­ing of re­ports sur­round­ing an al­leged na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat.

Her com­ments come af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­vealed in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day that a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent sparked by a gang mem­ber last Fri­day, had trig­gered height­ened pro­tec­tion for MPs and cer­tain Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Je­re­mie said he was au­tho­rised by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to dis­close the mat­ter dur­ing de­bate on leg­is­la­tion to es­tab­lish a pa­role sys­tem. Gue­var­ro lat­er con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion.

In a me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day, Pan­day said, “Cit­i­zens did not vote for one un­ac­count­able gov­ern­ment to be re­placed by an­oth­er. They want­ed trans­paren­cy, fair­ness and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

She ques­tioned whether the fo­cus on the re­port­ed se­cu­ri­ty threat was dis­tract­ing from scruti­ny over pro­cure­ment mat­ters.

“No one ob­jects to of­fi­cials be­ing pro­tect­ed where there is a re­al threat. But that can­not be­come a con­ve­nient shield from ac­count­abil­i­ty. A Gov­ern­ment can­not ask the pub­lic to fo­cus on se­cu­ri­ty for of­fi­cials while avoid­ing ques­tions about pub­lic mon­ey.”

Pan­day al­so point­ed to re­ports that the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) was in­ves­ti­gat­ing con­cerns in­volv­ing Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed and its han­dling of the pro­cure­ment process for the $100 mil­lion Al­lam­by Res­i­den­tial De­vel­op­ment project in Corinth, San Fer­nan­do and the di­rec­tive to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion to pause the award of $3.4 bil­lion in hous­ing con­tracts pend­ing a re­view of pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings.

“These are not mi­nor is­sues. They in­volve pub­lic mon­ey, pub­lic land, pub­lic con­tracts and pub­lic trust. The peo­ple de­serve to know who ben­e­fits, who ap­proved what and whether these process­es were fair, trans­par­ent and law­ful.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment must an­swer ques­tions re­lat­ing both to crime and the pro­tec­tion of pub­lic funds.

“The peo­ple de­serve pro­tec­tion from crim­i­nals. They al­so de­serve pro­tec­tion from cor­rup­tion,” Pan­day said.