Partap: Scandal in NEDCO and C’da farm project

Nariva MP Harry Partap has alleged irregularities in certain loans granted by the Government-run National Enterprise Development Company (NEDCO), speaking on the National Budget 2004/2005 at the House of Representatives on Thursday night. Partap read out an inter-office memo dated October, 3 sent to the NEDCO Human Resource Manager, Gail Manzano Wilson, from the NEDCO Tobago Business Development Officer. In it the officer complained of the “suspicious nature” surrounding a disbursed file in the name of one Marvin Joseph for a loan of $50,000. The letter said: “The original and legal document is still missing from the file.”

The letter also named another loan recipient whose file the officer denied having ever prepared. “Although my name appears on the application form, it was not affixed by me,” wrote the officer. Partap called for action, urging: “The Minister of Labour must investigate because someone is earning money using other people’s names.” He remarked that since its founding in 2002, NEDCO is yet to present a report to Parliament to account for its expenditure and operations. “Seventy-five million dollars went to NEDCO. The Minister of Finance told us NEDCO has distributed 900 loans since it was established. We need answers.”

Saying there was no transparency in NEDCO, he explained: “The Government has put NEDCO out of the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.” Partap then pointed to another alleged scandal, in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Programme to Canada. This allegedly involved a former PNM general election candidate for Couva South now working as an attache to the programme based at its liaison office in Toronto. Partap declared: “He was in a questionable transaction that compromised the programme.” The controversy, said Partap, had forced the High Commissioner to Canada, Arnold Piggot, to visit the programme. “Piggot engaged in diplomatic semantics to keep the issue under wraps. His visit was given a diplomatic twist.”
Partap called on the Minister of Labour, Anthony Roberts, to make a statement on the matter, explain the nature of the incident, and state why the attache is still being employed.

Partap then attacked the Government’s National Budget. Partap suggested the Government had used the Budget to create slush funds in the various Ministries. He explained that the Budget document, the Draft Estimates of Expenditure, had allotted monies to various Ministries under the vague headings of “Short term employment” and “Fees.” “Where did these come from? Are these funds to be used for jobs for the PNM boys and girls? Or to buy votes in 2007?” Hitting $10 million in such dubious allocations to the Ministry of Labour, he said that in contrast only $1 million had been allotted by the Budget to establish the Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) to protect workers. “Where is the commitment of the PNM to put the machinery in place to manage the OSHA Act? Is that why not a single section of the OSHA Act has been passed?”

Further Partap said that in contrast to the Ministry having $800,000 allocated for oversees travel, the Budget had granted no money for labour inspectors. The Government’s increasing of the minimum wage would not help the poor against spiralling costs of food, clothing and housing, because it was not being enforced. “The Government is playing games with workers... The Government is hell-bent on making Trinidad and Tobago into a source of cheap labour.” On the proposed credit union bank,  Partap warned that harsh lessons were to be learnt from the former Cooperative Develop-ment Bank. “It was a cash cow for friends of the PNM. Many credit union members lost their life savings. I urge great care.”