Government has encountered “a whole landslide” of improperly awarded contracts amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars that require careful scrutiny before any public money is paid to contractors, Prime Minister Keith Rowley revealed yesterday.
“The exercise of verifying what is owed by the State (to contractors) has turned up some very shocking actions on the part of public officials who have been fast and loose with public monies,” the PM added in Parliament.
Rowley detailed the information, responding to Opposition queries on recent reports about non-payment of hundreds of millions of dollars outstanding to contractors. Last Sunday’s Guardian had reported that about $2 billion was owed.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert, acknowledging the report, had said Thursday that the Government in recent months had been in the first stage of auditing contractors’ debts to determine if they genuinely deserved payment and to ensure no fraud was involved. The clear outcome is that some of the debts may not be paid, if the agreements underpinning charges for services are determined to be fraudulent.
Shocking findings
Yesterday, Rowley shed more light on that matter when questioned by the Opposition. He conceded that the administration had been somewhat “delinquent” in paying contractors on time, and would be giving more “positive responses.”
However, he said they needed to perform careful checks on the contracts.
“Hundreds of millions” owed to contractors have to be audited to ensure “we’re paying millions of dollars for work done and contracts properly executed,” the PM said.
“The matter has attracted the attention of many agencies and I can tell you the exercise of verifying what is owed by the State has turned up some very shocking actions on the part of public officials who have been fast and loose with public monies.
“However, wherever it has been determined monies are well and duly owed to contractors and others, those monies are recognised by the State and we do recognise that substantial sums are owed to contractors. As far as those sums have passed muster as I just mentioned, they are due to be paid for goods and services provided. The Finance Ministry has been and continues to ensure we can discharge our liabilities in a timely manner.”
He continued: “We concede that because of T&T’s financial situation we’ve been a little delinquent in discharging our liabilities to contractors but we want to give contractors the assurance, with the recent progress made at the Finance Ministry, much more positive responses are underway.”
Hardship for contractors
Opposition MP Fuad Khan told the PM the situation had caused some CEPEP contractors to become indebted to suppliers and they were starting to lose assets—cars, houses, etc—as they were being taken to court. He asked Rowley to look into this to see what relief could be given to them.
Rowley responded: “I’m not going to assume Finance’s responsibility, but I can say, in so far as verification has shown these monies are owed, I have every confidence the Finance Minister, within our straitened circumstances, will seek to bring relief to those who qualify for these payments.
“But I must also say, in a plethora of areas there’s a whole landslide of improperly awarded contracts amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars that require careful scrutiny before any public money is paid...and I trust that doesn’t apply to small contractors.
“...Because it should be of concern to the public, where there are contractors who could be telling T&T they are owed hundreds of millions of dollars from agencies that didn’t have any money to pay them...Because it raises immediately what kind of procurement processes were used where agencies could have contracted the State in that way, and now leave liabilities of hundreds of millions of dollars. Meaning that contractors were bankrolling the country to that tune, (so) we have to check and verify before we pay.”
Opposition MP Suruj Rambachan said non-payment had caused some projects such as bridges to be shut down and projects were being closed because contractors could not finance projects.