SPEAKER Barry Sinanan is being asked to initiate “contempt proceedings at the level of the Privileges Committee” against the chairman and the Board of Directors of the Point Lisas Port Development Corporation Limited (PLIPDECO).

And if he does, it will certainly be a landmark decision that will add teeth to the otherwise moribund parliamentary committees that are supposed to ensure transparency and accountability in public affairs.

It all has to do with the corporation’s reluctance to get the relevant personnel to appear before the committee.

PLIPDECO claimed that its failure to execute the request of the Public Accounts Enterprises Committee (PAEC) was based on legal advice that the Standing Orders gave powers to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and not the PAEC.

Speaker
BARRY SINANAN

The corporation’s Manager, Internal Audit did not attend the sitting because of the same legal advice.

All of this played out in the first report of the PAEC, which was laid in the Lower House last week.

The Committee, which was chaired by Opposition Senator Wade Mark and included nine other members to scrutinise Energy and Energy based industries was scathing in its condemnation of PLIPDECO, which was chided the most among the four companies examined by the PAEC.

Indeed, the issue that most engaged the attention of the parliamentary committee was the contentious decision to purchase two cranes (worth over TT $40 million), after which the Ministry of Finance ordered a forensic audit into the accounts of PLIPDECO.

But the PAEC was given several run-arounds as it tried to get to the bottom of the matter, which according to the report, is the subject of two court matters; one of which involves the Sunday Guardian and another from a company which had submitted a tender to provide the cranes.

Indeed, the report demands “a forensic audit be conducted immediately into the purchase of the two cranes” and “that the relevant authorities make available to the PAEC the Compliance Report on the two cranes.”

But it has met similar reluctance from the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of Trade.

“No response has yet been received from the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance Corporation Sole on the request for the forensic audit in respect of PLIPDECO.

“Similarly, no response has been received from the Ministry of Trade and Industry,” the report states.

It is interesting to note that the company which will be conducting the Ministry-sanctioned audit is Ernst and Young, which recently replaced PriceWaterHouseCoopers as the auditors of PLIPDECO.

Concerns were raised by the committee with respect to the contradiction in having Ernst and Young as the auditor and bring them in to conduct the second stage of the forensic audit.

But it was on “the instructions of the Junior Finance Minister that Ernst and Young were hired to conduct the audit which started in July 2004.

“The parliamentary committee also calls for the Compliance Report on the two cranes and wants the Board of Directors to report on why it did not accept the management recommendation for the bid/tenders where applicable.”

The PAEC report states that “the value of the cranes purchased is between TT $40 million to TT $50 million.

“The mobile harbour crane was US $2.2 million and the Post Panamax gantry crane was US $6 million.”

PLIPDECO says it received approval from the Ministry of Finance for the acquisition of the cranes.

Apart from its request to haul PLIPDECO’s Board over the coals, the PAEC made several recommendations in a bid to make its work more effective.

Chief among them is a request for the Standing Orders to be amended to reflect the powers of the PAEC.

The Committee also wants to be empowered, through the Speaker, “to report directly or refer files to the Director of Public Prosecutions on matters, which, having regard to the Auditor General’s Report as well as other auditing entities may appear to be of a criminal nature”.