Highway Re-Route Movement (HRM) leader, Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, is calling on the Government to conduct a forensic probe into the Debe to Mon Desir Highway and is also asking for an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley as he has attempted to meet with him at least “60 times.”
At a press conference outside the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain, yesterday, Kublalsingh said while the HRM welcomed efforts by the Government to provide financial information on the collapsed Point Fortin Highway, he urged:
“The entire process from certification to collapse must be audited.
“With respect to Debe to Mon Desir, this audit must cover the period from Environmental Management Authority (EMA) certification, the date of the bankruptcy and collapse of the OAS.”
Saying this was the most expensive project ever undertaken in the country, Kublalsingh claimed it was manipulated leading to the economic collapse.
He said while the OAS was not to blame, successive governments, since 2006, must be blamed.
“We did have a meeting with Dr Rowley before the election but I have been trying to have a meeting with him for a very long time to tell him what I know.
The crime started in the certification process and it went on in the contract process,” Kublalsingh added.
On what he wanted to come out of the such a probe Kublalsingh said it must be ensured that the Government did the right thing and ensure the wrongdoers were brought to justice.
“If they do not act, there is a good chance that the entire Parliament in the next election will not be there.
“Governments that continue to violate proper approach and process will continue to retard development and will continue to burden the Treasury with cost overruns,” Kublalsingh added.
Sitting on a stool, Kublalsingh was surrounded by a handful of supporters unlike the crowds who had supported him when he took part in the first hunger strike several years ago.
Asked whether he believed he had the backing of the population this time around, he said he thanked God for the support from the various churches and trade unions and other groups.
And if a meeting with the PM failed Kublalsingh said he would then mobilise support from such entities.
He said he had no intention of going on another hunger strike.
“There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The 19 experts and scientists of the Armstrong Report concluded that the CDC for the Debe to Mon Desir highway was flawed and should have been sent back to the applicants, the Ministry of Works.
“That no proper social impact assessment, hydrological study, environment cost benefit analysis were done; it explicitly stated that no works should proceed until the scientific process was applied,” Kublalsingh added.