Finance Ministry never supervised Airport Project monies

PERMANENT SECRETARY in the Ministry of Finance, Kamal Mankee, revealed yesterday that the Ministry’s Project Management Unit (PMU) never monitored the Piarco Inter-national Airport Project because the former United National Congress (UNC) government denied it the tools to do so.

Testifying before the Commission of Inquiry into the Project at the Caribbean Court of Justice, Mankee said he was PS from May 1997 to December 1999 and was reappointed to the position last March. He told the Commission that at the time of the Project, he was the director of the Ministry’s PMU which had responsibility for overseeing the financial aspects of any government project  (including the development works at the Piarco and Crown Point Airports). Asked by Commission lead attorney Theodore Guerra SC if he knew the budgeted cost for combined works at Piarco and Crown Point was $660 million, Mankee replied affirmatively.

Asked if he knew that cost of works at Piarco had skyrocketed to $3.6 billion, the PS said he was shocked to hear of this figure but had no reason to doubt its accuracy given the source of the information. Reminded by Guerra that it was the PMU’s job to oversee the Project’s  finances, Mankee replied that the PMU “never monitored the Piarco Project”. According to Mankee, the unit was severely under-staffed and under-resourced. He recalled complaining verbally to former Finance Minister Brian Kuei Tung about this but said Kuei Tung never did anything to address the PMU’s deficiencies.

The PS also said the tender rules for CP13 stated that the tenderer must finance, supply and hand over speciality equipment to the Airports Authority (AA), after which the AA would reimburse the tenderer over a six-month period. Mankee added that the preferred bidder for CP13 was the United States-based company Calmaquip.  Asked by Guerra if Calmaquip lived up to its obligations, Mankee said he was not PS at the time when that decision was taken. Told by Guerra that the Commission had evidence that the AA paid US$780,000 to Calmaquip before that company “lifted a straw” on CP13, the PS replied that he was unaware of that. Mankee added that the tender price for CP13 was US$30 million.

Questioned earlier by Sean Cazabon, attorney for former Housing Minister John Humphrey, Mankee said Humphrey was not part of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, which was responsible for monitoring work on the airport. He identified Kuei Tung, former Attorney-General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and former Works Minister Sadiq Baksh as three members of that Committee. Also appearing yesterday before the Commission was former Joint Consultative Council (JCC) president Brian Lewis, who said although Birk Hillman Consultants (BHC) were officially appointed as the Project’s architect on January 7, 1997, BHC’s involvement at Piarco actually began in 1996. The hearing will resume tomorrow.