PM calls for criminal probe into Scotland over T&TEC legal matter

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day an­nounced that she in­tends to file a re­port to the po­lice for a crim­i­nal probe to be launched in­to Op­po­si­tion MP Kei­th Scot­land for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing to de­fraud a State en­ti­ty.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed that Scot­land, while an at­tor­ney for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), al­leged­ly de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­led the State com­pa­ny in­to be­liev­ing he filed a case against Fla­vorite Foods Ltd, when records re­veal he did not.

“I wish to an­nounce that I have in­struct­ed the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, the Ho­n­ourable Bar­ry Padarath, to ask T&TEC to in­sti­tute le­gal pro­ceed­ings against Mr Scot­land and his cham­bers for fraud­u­lent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion, pro­fes­sion­al neg­li­gence and breach of con­tract. I’ve al­so di­rect­ed that con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to a for­mal com­plaint to the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion for breach of the Code of Con­duct, pur­suant to the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act.

“I have al­so di­rect­ed that this mat­ter be re­port­ed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Fraud Squad for in­ves­ti­ga­tion and to de­ter­mine whether crim­i­nal charges should be laid for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud T&TEC, mis­fea­sance and cor­rup­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed that Scot­land, while rep­re­sent­ing T&TEC, was made to file a claim against Fla­vorite, which was owned by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment mem­ber An­dre Mon­teil, and failed to do so, while in­form­ing T&TEC that he did.

She said the in­for­ma­tion came to light af­ter T&TEC in­struct­ed its lawyers to file a claim against Fla­vorite to re­cov­er out­stand­ing ar­rears on un­paid elec­tric­i­ty bills to­talling $2,392,220.11, which ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over a five-year pe­ri­od be­tween April 2017 and Jan­u­ary 2022.

She claimed that while Scot­land re­port­ed to T&TEC that he filed the case on two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions, and al­so filed for de­fault judg­ment against Fla­vorite, this was not sup­port­ed by court doc­u­ments.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so called out a list of peo­ple and en­ti­ties linked to the PNM, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his wife Sharon Row­ley, whom she claimed were on a “se­cret list” of peo­ple T&TEC could not dis­con­nect even if they were in de­fault of bill pay­ments.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, how­ev­er, Scot­land chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter to re­peat the com­ments with­out Par­lia­men­tary pro­tec­tion.

“I in­vite the Prime Min­is­ter to make these claims out­side of the Par­lia­ment. We have done the claim, we did the en­try for judg­ment in de­fault of ap­pear­ance on Fla­vorite, and to pre­sume or to make an al­le­ga­tion that be­cause (An­dre) Mon­teil (Fla­vorite own­er) is some PNM mem­ber, that there was some col­lu­sion to sup­press a T&TEC mat­ter is a se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion, and I call up­on her to make those al­le­ga­tions out­side of the Par­lia­ment.”

Hold­ing up a doc­u­ment with a court stamp, Scot­land said there is cur­rent­ly a re­quest for en­try of judg­ment in de­fault, with a query from the reg­is­trar pend­ing. How­ev­er, he said he could not com­ment on the re­quest, as that may be in breach of client/at­tor­ney priv­i­lege.

“I have the doc­u­men­ta­tions in my hand, where not on­ly was the claim re­filed, but a judg­ment in de­fault of ap­pear­ance was made, sup­port­ing with all the doc­u­ments, and we even have a query from the reg­is­trar, query­ing some of the is­sues that will raise the judg­ment, and that was not told to the pub­lic, and I want to set the record straight,” Scot­land said.

He added, “What we will not do is I will not be si­lenced. I will rile against any in­jus­tice, be it against par­lia­men­tary staff, be it against peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and they will not si­lence my voice with at­tacks on my char­ac­ter, at­tacks on me, and by ex­ten­sion, my fam­i­ly. I not tak­ing that!”

PM un­veils the ‘do not dis­con­nect’ list:

Dr Kei­th Row­ley

Sharon Row­ley

Mar­vin Gon­za­les

Pen­ne­lope Beck­les

Fos­ter Cum­mings

Don­na Cox

Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh

Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly

Kaz­im Ho­sein

Ter­rence Deyals­ingh

Sham­fa Cud­joe

Symon De No­bri­ga

Fitzger­ald Hinds

Al­i­son West

Ro­han Sinanan

Has­sel Bac­chus

Ran­dal Mitchell

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil

Con­trac­tors at Balis­er House.