Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has moved to quash allegations that it was the People’s National Movement (PNM) Government that signed off on the award of the controversial $5 billion construction project to Brazilian firm OAS Construtora on May 25, 2010.
“Nothing is further from the truth,” he said in the Parliament on Friday.
This adds to the blame game over the issue.
Rowley said he wanted to “rectify misinformation” from the Opposition about the Point Fortin Highway and the OAS contractor.
He said everyone knew there was a new government on May 25, 2010.
The PM said documents would show that the correspondence between National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) and OAS took place under the newly-elected government.
“As a matter of fact, it was because there was no contract given to OAS, why OAS travelled from Brazil...South Africa, to ensure that a contract was given to OAS. And I asked the prime minister of the day a number of times about that and she never answered about that.”
He said with the Panama Papers scandal, all of a sudden, the Opposition wanted to make the country believe that the OAS contract was a PNM creature.
Rowley said, “The PNM has absolutely nothing to do with the award of the contract to OAS.”
The highway project has become politically toxic, with the firm pulling out of the half completed project, and laying off hundreds of workers.
It started in 2011. Construction had to be delayed on several occasions due to protest action at various sites taken by the Highway Reroute Movement (HRM), who opposed it based on environmental concerns and the displacement of residents, whose land had to be acquired by the Government for construction.
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The Sunday Guardian had reported that in the last report of the National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) for October 2015 and its former president Dr Carson Charles, on May 13, 2010, the Tenders Evaluation Committee recommended that Nidco enter into negotiations with OAS Construtora Ltd as a preferred respondent.
At the end of the tender evaluation process, the recommendation was sent to the Ministry of Works and Transport.
On May 25, 2010, one day after the general election, under then Nidco president Keisha Ince, Nidco informed OAS by letter that it was the preferred respondent.