New questions about scholarship list: Panday wants probe

A report in the Trinidad Express quotes school teacher Meera Millington as saying the government of Trinidad and Tobago never gave her any money and neither did it pay for her tuition at the University of The West Indies (UWI).

However, her name appears on the controversial list of people who received scholarships in 2004 from the culture ministry.

Check the partial list (2004) published by the Trinidad Express

The Fatima College teacher told the paper she had written to the ministry seeking financial aid when she started her studies at UWI two years before the Government Assistance for Tertiary Education (GATE) was introduced.

However she told the paper the university has no record of the government paying any part of her tuition. She said, "The records show that TSTT paid my tuition."

She told the paper the money from the telephone company was from a program that gives financial aid to children of employees who need help and are pursuing further education. Her mother works at TSTT.

She told the paper she paid for the first two years at UWI before the government introduced the GATE program.

The paper quoted the Culture Ministry’s communications manager, Aleem Khan, as saying that the list "is not a list from the ministry".

The list that the Express asked about is the that one ITEC lawyer Anand Ramlogan was able to get through a court intervention, using the Freedom of Information Act.

It has a culture ministry heading and Millington’s name, indicating that she got money in 2004, the paper said.

Read the Express Editorial: Unfair and unwise stonewalling

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday has taken up the issue and is calling for a police investigation. In a media statement Thursday he said the matter "reeks of secrecy, corruption and lies".

Commenting on the apparent misleading information regarding Millington, Panday asked, "How many other examples of misinformation are there in this list? The Minister should be charged for contempt, for providing misinformation to the court."

He also called on the government to reveal the names of persons who received houses under the Housing Development Corporation and the recipients of loans through NEDCO must also be revealed.

“This is how the government of the day deals with transparency,” Panday said. “Look at the Maha Sabha radio license issue, matters of Equal Opportunities and that of Caroni workers. These are just a few of the issues which this PNM government refused to abide by, when judgments were handed down by the courts,” he said.