Charge Manning and former PNM ministers: Elias

File photo: Emile Elias

The Chairman of NH International told reporters Wednesday the authorities should charge former Prime Minister Patrick Manning and a number of members of his former Cabinet.

Emile Elias charged that there is a political and personal vendetta against him and his company.

NH International was the contractors for a government housing project at Cleaver Heights in East Trinidad during the Manning administration when the present leader of the People's National Movement, Keith Rowley, was minister of housing.

Manning had accused Rowley of mismanagement of the project and suggested that he should explain what he said was a missing $10 million. An internal investigation subsequently cleared Rowley. However the Manning administration engaged Canadian forensic investigator Bob Linguist to investigate further.

Elias accused Manning and his colleagues, Colm Imbert, Emily Gaynor Dicke-Forde, and John Jeremie, of deliberately suppressing the Lindquist report, which he said confirmed that NH International was in order with respect to the Cleaver Heights Project.

"Mr. Manning was in the Parliament and saying that money was missing and God knows where it will end. But I hope that he, Imbert, Dick-Forde and Jeremie now know where it will end, which is in their prosecution for malfeasance in public office," Elias said.