No cover-up on WASA

WE EXPECT that, having made his play in Parliament, Opposition Chief Whip Ganga Singh, will now fully co-operate with the investigation into the $51 million Waterfarms affair and hand over to forensic investigator Bob Lindquist all the evidence he may have on this controversial matter. Mr Singh must be consistent; after raising the issue in the first place and after  shocking the country with his charges in the House on Wednesday, calling names in an alleged scheme to secure an over-payment of $29 million from WASA, the member for Caroni East must now see this matter through to its proper conclusion.

The central objective in dealing with this highly questionable transaction, as it is in all such dubious matters, is to determine the truth and to take the necessary action, as justice would demand, against all those who may be found culpable. This is what this newspaper has demanded in every single case of apparent public fraud and this is what we expect will now be done with respect to the charges being made by Mr Singh. According to what the Caroni East member has told the Parliament, it seems the payout of $51 million by WASA to Waterfarms is not as simple a matter as first appeared, and, in this regard, the approach taken by the Manning government to have an independent investigation done by Mr Lindquist must be considered the correct one. It was, in fact, the kind of probe that Mr Singh had called for, and we must assume that the opposition member will, at least in this issue, see the need to co-operate.

It seems unfortunate that the Opposition Chief Whip should use the shelter of parliamentary privilege to publicly indict by name the vice-chairman of WASA who is also a member of the PNM General Council, a well-known doctor and PNM activist and a local lawyer in a conspiracy to defraud WASA of $29 million as an overpayment to Waterfarms following the curtailment of its contract. The first two have vehemently denied Mr Singh's allegations, declaring that they had no connection whatever with the payout to Waterfarms and challenging Mr Singh to repeat his charges outside the House. Mr Singh must know that if what he has said about these persons are untrue, then he has committed a serious injustice to them and an intolerable breach of parliamentary privilege. It is obvious, then, that the need to resolve this issue by finding the truth is a most urgent one and we expect that Mr Lindquist, while he must be as thorough as possible, would be expeditious in his investigation. By now the entire country must be anxious to learn how and on what basis WASA could pay $51 million for work done on an unauthorised contract when an independent assessment limited the compensation to $13 million.

Prime Minister Manning, we expect, would also be keen on dealing with this matter as justice and the law would demand, thus removing whatever stigma such a "scandal" may tend to leave on his party and his administration. The country, we think, should be pleased with the PM's no-cover-up approach. He himself has declared that there are no "holy cows" in his party and government, thus giving an assurance that no one implicated in any fraudulent transaction within the state sector will be protected or eased-up because of his position or connections. This, of course, is as it should be. The moral standards by which all civilised societies live demand it. Crime should be equally repugnant and just as forcefully prosecuted wherever we may find it. Which, by the way, reminds us that we have come from far, from another dispensation when the desire and the will to deal with dubious deals and pervasive corruption were not as keen.