Minister’s father got $4.15M in contracts

She made the disclosure while answering a query from Opposition UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Persad-Bissessar stated that Beckles received CEPEP contracts worth $199,000, $1.86M and $2.1M, between 2003 and 2005. Beckles during the tea-break told reporters Lionel Beckles became a contractor before she was minister.

Asked if the latter two contracts were awarded after she became minister and whether there were any conflict of interest involved, she said these were not individual contracts, but merely a continuation of work allocated to Lionel Beckles, once he became a CEPEP contractor in 2002.

Earlier, in response to the Opposition, she told the House that another CEPEP contractor, Brian Beckles, who had received contracts worth $1.79M and $2.1M, was not related to her.

“I will maintain that in the setting up of such a large project with such a large funding, the resources and the oversight did not exist in the Ministry to properly manage that large project,” Beckles said.

Beckles also told reporters during the break that it was she who requested an investigation into CEPEP which resulted in the damning Auditor General’s Report laid last week Friday in the House of Representatives.

She said since the Auditor-General’s investigation, certain systems had been put in place to improve the running of CEPEP, including the setting up of a Business Services Unit in her Ministry and the planned transfer of the programme out of SWMCOL to a new body.

Asked if anyone is being held to account, she said, “The report was laid in the House last week Friday and out of an abundance of caution, you will give people the opportunity to further respond and we will ask SWMCOL to further respond and as I said, if the need arises to take other steps, that will be done.”

Told that the new company to oversee CEPEP may not be accountable under the Integrity in Public Life Act, she said that concern could be looked into.

At a press conference yesterday, Persad-Bissessar hit CEPEP calling it a PNM feeding frenzy and saying she had requested a further investigation into CEPEP by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Integrity Commission, and the Commissioner of Police.

She said CEPEP is an “immense scandal” which has bled the nation of millions of dollars. The Auditor General’s report into CEPEP, she added, confirmed long-standing allegations made by the Opposition.

She scoffed at the Ministry’s excuse that it lacked staff to monitor CEPEP, saying, “CEPEP was commenced from the start knowing it would have allowed mismanagement and misuse of public funds, yet neither the Minister nor anyone else made any effort to do anything about it,” Persad-Bissessar said.

She said no-one was monitoring the financial operations of CEPEP at a time when $378M was spent in the years 2002 and 2003. “This is a national scandal and someone or some people must be held accountable and penalised.”

Persad-Bissessar said in the days since the report was laid in Parliament, Beckles had failed to advise TT as to what steps would be taken to ensure persons culpable in the multi-million dollar scandal are brought to justice.