Beckles: Procurement Bill could open door to gutting Treasury

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of pass­ing leg­is­la­tion that could “open the door to gut­ting the Trea­sury” and al­low bil­lions of dol­lars to be squan­dered.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion in the Sen­ate, Beck­les said the de­ci­sion by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors not to sup­port the Bill had ex­posed what she de­scribed as se­ri­ous con­cerns about the leg­is­la­tion.

“The sim­ple fact is that their de­ci­sions have re­vealed the se­ri­ous con­cerns sur­round­ing this Bill and the ex­tent to which it could be used to gut the Trea­sury and al­low bil­lions of dol­lars to be squan­dered by this UNC Gov­ern­ment,” Beck­les said.

She crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Gov­ern­ment for pro­ceed­ing with the leg­is­la­tion de­spite the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ op­po­si­tion.

Beck­les said she was “out­raged” by the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to pass a Bill which, she claimed, every In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, in­clud­ing those who had sup­port­ed Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion on pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, had found dif­fi­cult to sup­port.

“What is telling is that this Gov­ern­ment ap­pears to be here for a good time, with bad rea­son, and is pre­pared to go to ex­treme mea­sures to fat­ten its pock­ets,” she said.

Beck­les al­so ref­er­enced pre­vi­ous con­tro­ver­sies un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing Life­S­port, HDC and the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port scan­dal.

“We have seen this be­fore. Life­S­port. HDC Gate. The Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port scan­dal,” she said.

Beck­les said the Gov­ern­ment had pro­ceed­ed with the leg­is­la­tion de­spite the con­cerns raised in the Sen­ate.

“The UNC slept well last night as it moved for­ward with a Bill that could open the door to gut­ting the Trea­sury,” she said.

“Mean­while, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are left to cow­er in the shad­ows of this UNC night­mare.”