FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert and Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan are being called upon to account for $1.2 billion allocated to repair roads in the country.
The call comes from Oropouche West MP Davendranath Tancoo in a release on Wednesday. It follows protests by residents across the country calling for repairs to roads and Sinanan saying there was not enough money to fix them.
Tancoo said, “The Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan is being less that factual when he claims there isn’t enough money to fix the nation’s roads as his Ministry has been the main recipient of over TT$8 billion from the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) in the past seven years.”
He said Imbert has signed several loan agreements with CAF specifically for road and infrastructure development over the last seven years but neither Minister Imbert or Minister Sinanan has accounted for these billions.
Tancoo said exactly one year ago on July 27, 2021, CAF approved a US$175 million loan to Trinidad and Tobago which was to be used to “tackle activities to improve the quality of infrastructure, with initiatives such as feasibility studies, modernization of roads, ports and airports, road maintenance, among others.”
He said, “That’s TT$ 1.2 billion for road works.”
Tancoo noted that on March 12, 2019, CAF approved a US$200 million loan to improve T&T’s road network, through the construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance of roads, access roads and an overpass, together with the management, and planning actions carried out by the Ministry of Works and Transport.
He said according to CAF, “In the last four years (2016-2020), CAF approved operations for T&T totaling US$1,151 million, which represents an average of US$288 million per year (or TT$ 7,803,780,000 or TT$ 1,952,640,000 per year).”
Tancoo said based on these public figures, over the past few years T&T have had access to TT$9 billion in loans from CAF alone and this does not include the hundreds of millions allocated every year to the Minister of Works in the annual budget.
Tancoo said, “So for the Minister to claim that there isn’t enough money to fix the roads is ludicrous, ridiculous and deceptive.
“No Minister, there is more than enough money to fix the roads but it is petty geographical discrimination that stops the roadworks in Oropouche West, Moruga and Tabaquite from being done.”
He said, “The Minister of Works and his colleague the Minister of Finance must explain to the population what these billions of dollars have been spent on because as every citizen throughout the country knows, the road network today is worse than it has ever been. Where has the money gone?”
