Juliana Johan-Boodram said the minister insisted on chairing the tender committee regarding the contract, which her family’s firm received, and had asked to be present at the opening of the tender’s box.
Johan-Boodram also said efforts were made to extend the scope of the contract awarded to family firm. She said the ministry received e-mails from King’s son, Stephen, who is the company’s business manager, soliciting new work from the ministry.
King was fired from her ministerial portfolio following a report to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar from the Attorney General.
The former minister is alleged to have failed to disclose her personal interest in IXanos Ltd and participated in the selection process for the award of the contract. In addition she placed her secretary on the evaluation committee, which recommended the award to IXanos Ltd.
Johan-Boodram said she warned the minister about her actions. “I told her this is not the protocol that is normally followed and ministers are not supposed to be involved in this activity."
She added, “The minister became very angry with me and demanded to know why this could not be done and insisted that I show her the regulations that would debar her from being the chair.”
Johan-Boodram said she consulted with the Allison Lewis, PS in the finance minister. "We both concurred that in order to protect the minister’s integrity, I would try to discourage her from participating in any tendering process,” she said.
Johan-Boodram told the AG she assured King the process would be fair and that senior personnel would be put on the evaluation team. At that point, she said, King agreed not to chair the committee but insisted that her personal assistant be included in the team.
Johan-Boodram said again she cautioned the minister about her action, saying her personal staff should not be included. “But she said she was advised by the Cabinet all tendering should have her representative present,” Johan-Boodram said.
She added that at no time King indicated any interest in any of the companies bidding for the contract. She said she was shoked when she learned that the contract went to the company in which the minister's husband and son had an interest.
She added that several of the evaluation team members regarding said they did not know.
However, Johan-Boodram claimed that the ministry’s IT manager, Deosaran Bisnath, knew all along and said he did not see anything wrong with the process.
She stated further that said Bisnath wanted to get into a service level agreement with IXanos to maintain the website and submitted a copy of the agreement from IXanos. "I indicated I was not prepared to consider this,” she added.
Johan-Boodram said she did not discuss the matter further with the minister fearing that such a discussion would cause a strain in her relationship with her boss.
“In addition, cognisant of the minister’s role in Transparency International, I felt she was aware of conflict of interest and, therefore, I believed the best course of action was to have the contract completed as early as possible and avoid any further business with this company,” she said.
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