TRHA denies it has launched probe into ambulance contract

The To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) is deny­ing re­ports that it has launched an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the con­tro­ver­sial pro­cure­ment of am­bu­lances, but Guardian Me­dia has been told the au­thor­i­ty will break its si­lence on the mat­ter soon.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on Tues­day, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris claimed the ini­tial $5.5 mil­lion fig­ure for the 2023 con­tract had bal­looned to over $16 mil­lion. On­ly four ve­hi­cles have been de­liv­ered to date and they are a dif­fer­ent make than what was ap­proved.

Mor­ris is call­ing for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and has writ­ten to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, rais­ing con­cerns about cost over­runs, ve­hi­cle sub­sti­tu­tions and miss­ing ap­provals.

He al­so called on Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor to re­sign.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus al­so wants the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and Fraud Squad to probe the mat­ter, and wants a full au­dit of THA con­tracts award­ed since 2021.

Me­dia re­ports yes­ter­day sur­faced sug­gest­ing the TRHA had launched an in­ter­nal probe in­to the mat­ter. But when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, a se­nior TRHA of­fi­cial dis­missed that as “in­ac­cu­rate and un­true,” adding the au­thor­i­ty has not launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to “it­self.”

—Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les