Tewarie: Let BIR probe oil firm

He made the call as a member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which sat at Tower D, International Waterfront Centre in Port of Spain.

Saying the company has under-supplied yet was overpaid, Tewarie said the saga was disturbing. At the PAC meeting where senior staffers from the Ministry of Energy were questioned, while officials from the Auditor General’s Office looked on, Tewarie pointed out, “I find the casual nature of the conversation is even more disturbing.” Earlier, he asked if the Energy Ministry and Minister Franklin Khan knew of the fake oil scandal before it became public information, to which the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Selwyn Lashley replied, “The preliminary report had no details. There’s a report circulating right now in the public space.

Those details are part of a final report that is still to come to the ministry.” Lashley declined to speculate on why the ministry would not yet possess a report that is already public.

Tewarie asked, “So prior to the public exposure of this report, you did not have knowledge?” Lashley replied, “Not at all.” He said he could not speak for Energy Minister Franklin Khan, adding,“It wasn’t submitted to the ministry officially.” Lashley later said he saw no conflict of interest in him being on Petrotrin’s board and being Permanent Secretary of Petrotrin’s line ministry.

Tewarie later told reporters he found it hard to believe the Ministry had no report on the fake oil issue especially since it points to possible collusion to subvert the country’s resources and over-expenditure of taxpayers money.

He was also scathing of revelations to the PAC that revenues for oil and aggregate from 80 quarries are paid to the ministry on the basis of trust in an ‘honour system’, without the ministry ever able to confirm the amount of each natural resource extracted.

Tewarie said the fake oil scandal shows that the honour system cannot work. “There’s no honour here,” he quipped.

Brian Caesar of the Auditor General’s Office agreed that the honour system was not tenable.

“You cannot manage what you cannot measure.

You must strengthen controls.”