BARRY TURNS UP HEAT ON MARVIN

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter 

[email protected]

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says sev­er­al mat­ters aris­ing from foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to state en­ti­ties will be re­ferred to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Con­tribut­ing to the de­bate on the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Fi­nan­cial Year 2027) Bill, 2026, in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Padarath lev­elled al­le­ga­tions of fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, ques­tion­able pro­cure­ment prac­tices and weak cor­po­rate over­sight at state agen­cies un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He iden­ti­fied mat­ters in­volv­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS) and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), in­sist­ing his dis­clo­sures were sup­port­ed by foren­sic and in­ves­tiga­tive re­ports.

“I didn’t tell you hearsay. I didn’t tell you move along. I didn’t tell you gos­sip,” Padarath said.

“What I’ve told you is EY foren­sic re­port, in­ves­tiga­tive re­ports com­mis­sioned by the board and man­age­ment of these com­pa­nies.”

Padarath first cit­ed an Ernst & Young re­view of trans­ac­tions in­volv­ing Flex­i­ble En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed and WASA be­tween 2019 and 2024.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, the re­port iden­ti­fied ap­prox­i­mate­ly $11.4 mil­lion in ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and 450 un­sup­port­ed in­voic­es val­ued at $30.1 mil­lion.

He not­ed that the com­pa­ny was reg­is­tered in the con­stituen­cy of Arou­ca/Lopinot, for­mer­ly rep­re­sent­ed by ex-pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, and said com­pa­ny reg­istry records raised ad­di­tion­al ques­tions about the trans­ac­tions.

Read­ing from the re­port, he said ma­jor is­sues in­clud­ed un­sup­port­ed in­voic­es, wa­ter truck­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and heavy equip­ment ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

He fur­ther al­leged that Ernst & Young iden­ti­fied sys­temic de­fi­cien­cies in gov­er­nance and op­er­a­tional con­trols at WASA, in­clud­ing un­clear man­dates, in­con­sis­tent over­sight, poor record man­age­ment, miss­ing doc­u­ments and in­com­plete pro­cure­ment files.

Padarath ar­gued that the find­ings war­rant­ed fur­ther scruti­ny and chal­lenged Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cism of in­creased spend­ing on wa­ter truck­ing, say­ing the foren­sic re­view raised se­ri­ous ques­tions about arrange­ments made un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Re­fer­ring to the un­sup­port­ed in­voic­es, he told Par­lia­ment, “$30.1 mil­lion has been cit­ed by Ernst & Young.”

He lat­er con­firmed the WASA mat­ter had been re­ferred to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“WASA has now gone to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al,” he said.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate on Sat­ur­day, for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Gon­za­les called for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to what he de­scribed as a wa­ter truck­ing rack­et at WASA.

Gon­za­les ques­tioned an al­most $30 mil­lion in­crease in WASA’s al­lo­ca­tion for wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices and raised con­cerns about con­trac­tors al­leged­ly be­ing paid twice to trans­port wa­ter through some of the au­thor­i­ty’s tank farms.

At a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les pushed back against Padarath’s claims, not­ing that the Ernst & Young re­port was com­mis­sioned dur­ing his tenure as min­is­ter.

“I want to tell the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, do not al­low peo­ple at WASA to make him make a pub­lic fool of him­self,” Gon­za­les said.

“He has a pas­sion to be scan­dalous and be scan­dalous for no rea­son. He came and made a pub­lic fool of him­self. He is such a dis­grace to the Par­lia­ment. He strug­gles to rise and he strug­gles to main­tain.”

Padarath re­spond­ed that the in­crease in wa­ter truck­ing ex­pen­di­ture was nec­es­sary to ser­vice rur­al com­mu­ni­ties while tank farms were be­ing de­vel­oped and con­nect­ed to the net­work.

“Be­cause they are in rur­al ar­eas, far re­moved from every­thing, they have noth­ing to con­nect it to be­cause you did not in­vest in any con­nec­tions. There­fore, we had to in­crease wa­ter truck­ing to get the wa­ter,” he said.

Padarath al­so re­vis­it­ed a wa­ter con­nec­tion grant­ed to Nu­trim­ix, say­ing a val­u­a­tion re­port es­ti­mat­ed the cost at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $530,000, but the com­pa­ny was ul­ti­mate­ly charged just over $2,000.

He said the mat­ter was al­ready un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion but said fur­ther ac­tion was be­ing tak­en.

“I have asked the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to look in­to the files,” Padarath said.

He added: “In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not enough. This file will now be go­ing to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau.”

Turn­ing to MTS, Padarath cit­ed an in­ter­im foren­sic re­port in­to school re­pair and re­fur­bish­ment projects be­tween 2019 and 2026.

He said in­ves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied sus­pect­ed bid ma­nip­u­la­tion, con­nect­ed con­trac­tors, unau­tho­rised con­tract ap­provals and ques­tion­able sole-source con­sul­tan­cy arrange­ments.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, the re­port ex­am­ined con­trac­tor pay­ments ex­ceed­ing $1 bil­lion and high­light­ed six com­pa­nies whose con­tracts war­rant­ed scruti­ny.

The pay­ments cit­ed in­clud­ed:

• $29.6 mil­lion to One In All Sup­plies and Gen­er­al Con­struc­tion Ltd

• $24.75 mil­lion to Shore­Serve Ltd

• $9 mil­lion to Coastal Trans­port and Con­struc­tion Ltd

• $5.1 mil­lion to Clydon En­ter­pris­es Ltd

• Ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.96 mil­lion to PECAL Ser­vices Ltd

• $1.63 mil­lion to Chase Gas Ltd

Padarath al­so ad­dressed TSTT’s ac­qui­si­tion of Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for $215 mil­lion.

He said a foren­sic ac­count­ing re­port found no val­u­a­tion was con­duct­ed to de­ter­mine the com­pa­ny’s worth be­fore the pur­chase.

The min­is­ter added, “When that re­port is laid, when that re­port is fi­nalised, that too will go to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.” Padarath said.

He said Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to re­view­ing the mat­ters and pur­su­ing any ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal or ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tion aris­ing from the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.