Kamla not comforted by Mouttet’s appointment

As such, she said, “He must rescind his decision and immediately move to establish a Commission of Enquiry into the Tobago ferry fiasco,” she said in a statement.

“Rowley has effectively hand-selected an investigator to examine the hand-selected ferries to service the seabridge,” she said.

The appointment of a private citizen, business executive Christian Mouttet as sole investigator, she said, “is an unprecedented and unparalleled approach to conducting investigations into alleged wrongdoing.

She said it was not proper for a member of the business community, who may depend on Government’s support and may also be a prime user of the Tobago seabridge and other port facilities, to be asked to conduct an independent inquiry into the operations of the Port Authority and its relevant officials.

Mouttet, who may have the best intentions in the world, she said, “begins his task in controversy and in an apparently compromised position.” Claiming that Rowley “missed the boat a long time ago” in dealing with the sea bridge issue and has missed it again, she said, the situation requires the independence of the investigator.

Persad-Bissessar said for months the deal with Bridgeman’s Services Group for the lease of the vessels have been the subject of Freedom of Information Act requests, an Integrity Commission complaint and calls for the police to investigate, and citizens have been calling for the Government to come clean, and Government had refused. She questioned the authority of the one man investigative team to call for documents or summon anyone.

Noting that the sole investigator would be supported by the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs, she said, the ministry “does not have investigative powers under the law.” “This shows that Rowley cannot be trusted, and it appears that he prefers to cloak the actions of his ministers and the board of the Port Authority in secrecy.

“Worse still, he is giving the investigator one month to investigate the matter.” She said in other matters where Rowley suspected fraud or corruption, he appointed professional auditors.

“What’s different this time? Why no professional auditor? Why no public hearings?”