Morris wants probe into $17M Tobago ambulance contract

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris is call­ing for a crim­i­nal probe in­to what he de­scribed as “the great­est pro­cure­ment be­tray­al” in the his­to­ry of the THA. He is al­so call­ing for the Health Sec­re­tary to re­sign.

Mor­ris, dur­ing a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, re­vealed he has writ­ten to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) call­ing for an ur­gent probe in­to the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (TRHA) con­tro­ver­sial pur­chase of 12 am­bu­lances, which he claimed bal­looned from $5.5 mil­lion to over $17 mil­lion with­out ex­pla­na­tion.

“I wrote to for­mal­ly re­quest an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to se­ri­ous and po­ten­tial­ly crim­i­nal ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties sur­round­ing the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s pro­cure­ment of am­bu­lances,” Mor­ris said.

The Mi­nor­i­ty Leader said the con­tract was award­ed in Ju­ly 2023, but on­ly four ve­hi­cles ar­rived. He claimed one was dam­aged on de­liv­ery and three were com­mis­sioned over two months ago.

He said, “The am­bu­lances that ar­rived were not the ones that were ten­dered for, ap­proved or paid for. It was a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent make and mod­el.”

Mor­ris fur­ther claimed the TRHA has al­ready paid more than $8 mil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing over 50 per cent of the con­tract’s val­ue, even though less than 50 per cent of the am­bu­lances were de­liv­ered.

He al­leged on­ly one ve­hi­cle had en­tered ro­ta­tion.

“That one that was placed in ro­ta­tion couldn’t even go up the sim­plest slop­ing hill of To­ba­go—the John Di­al Hill. Failed.”

He al­so raised con­cerns over what he de­scribed as the lack of Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil ap­proval for changes in the con­tract. Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor had said dur­ing a ple­nary sit­ting that Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil ap­proval was not need­ed for this.

Mor­ris ac­cused the sec­re­tary of fail­ing to act de­spite her le­gal over­sight role. Mor­ris claimed that there were sus­pect­ed ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

He said the sup­pli­er brought in a ve­hi­cle mod­el which sells for around $232,000 on­line, but tax­pay­ers were be­ing charged $1.295 mil­lion per unit, plus $244,000 to retro­fit each one.

“This is a mat­ter of grave pub­lic con­cern and must be treat­ed with the ur­gency and se­ri­ous­ness that it de­mands,” he said.

Mor­ris in­sist­ed that the Sec­re­tary of Health must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, not­ing she has le­gal au­thor­i­ty over the TRHA Board.

“The sec­re­tary can­not di­vorce her­self from what hap­pens at the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty … She is ul­ti­mate­ly re­spon­si­ble.

“This sec­re­tary needs to do the oth­er ho­n­ourable thing and re­sign,” he said.

Mor­ris said the mat­ter will be re­port­ed to the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, and fur­ther doc­u­men­ta­tion will be sub­mit­ted to aid in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Mean­while, In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus be­lieves To­bag­o­ni­ans de­serve clar­i­ty on the mat­ter.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, she said, “The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has to in­ves­ti­gate the sec­re­tary, TRHA, and the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus, who is a for­mer se­nior ad­vis­er to a Health Sec­re­tary be­tween 2009 and 2013 and a for­mer chair­man of TRHA, al­so called for the Fraud Squad to get in­volved and for an au­dit of THA con­tracts from 2021 to present.

All at­tempts to reach Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine have been un­suc­cess­ful.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the com­pa­ny con­tract­ed to pro­vide the am­bu­lances said the own­er had al­ready left for the day and ad­vised Guardian Me­dia to try again to­day.