A REPORT titled The Saga of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension to Point Fortin is referred to the Joint Joint Select Committee on Land and Physical Infrastructure for examination.
This was revealed by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in a statement to the Lower House on Wednesday.
His announcement comes weeks after Energy Minister Stuart Young revealed that $11 million was spent on the Commission of Enquiry into the highway. This was after the People’s National Movement (PNM) government ordered an enquiry in 2019 to probe alleged overvalued land acquisition for the highway project, but four years later, the commission has not started.
In Parliament, Dr Rowley said the United National Congress (UNC) has never explained why it was “so generous and protective” of disgraced Brazilian contractor OAS Construtora which was awarded the contract to build the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Point Fortin.
Rowley said even before construction began, OAS received more than $1 billion of taxpayers’ funds and the project should have been completed in March 2015 because there was a four-year contract.
The prime minister said in 2011 the People’s Partnership government, through NIDCO, awarded a design-build contract to Construtora OAS for $5.2 billion which was $1.6 billion more than the original engineer’s estimate.
He said, ‘… an interested group of known high-level Brazilian executives of OAS, flew by Dassault private jet from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Durban in South Africa, in pursuit of the said contract.”
Dr Rowley said the OAS executives travelled to Johannesburg to meet a member of the Cabinet who was responsible for and involved in the decision of the project at that time in a secret meeting between the minister and OAS took place at the Michael Angelo Towers in Johannesburg during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa
He said the project was far from completed when the People’s Partnership government left office in September 2015.
Dr Rowley said, “Work came to a virtual halt and unpaid local contractors were bawling and turning the new government for help.”
He said when the PNM government got into office in 2015, more than $5 billion was been spent but only 49%of the work had been done by OAS.
When Dr Rowley had ended his statement, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal asked him whether he was aware a 15-member committee comprising “PNM government officials” met on May 20, 2010, four days before the general elections and recommended that the contract be awarded to OAS, which had the lowest bid of $5.2 billion.
Moonilal added that the Nidco board appointed by the then-PNM government hosted OAS on May 25, 2010, hours after the general election to indicate that they were the preferred bidder of the PNM Government.
The prime minister replied: “Thou dost protest too much. Tell that to the committee of Parliament.”
