Panday takes gov't to task over UDeCOTT

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday wants the government of Trinidad and Tobago to state what it intends to do about UDeCOTT's admission of severe errors of its tendering procedure and the breach of its own tendering rules.

In a media release Tuesday Panday noted that UDeCOTT continues to award contracts valued millions of dollars to a company owned by the relatives of its executive director, Calder Hart.

Panday said the refusal by Hart's attorneys to challenge the evidence of Carl Khan to the UFF Commission of Inquiry is "incontrovertible evidence of widespread corruption and financial impropriety on the part of UDeCOTT and the Patrick Manning led regime."

He added, “The evidence now discloses that more than $30 million dollars have been squandered on these corruptly run projects while the nation stifles in a recession, and looks on in horror at the fact that they will have to pay hefty taxes on their properties come March 2010 to satisfy the insatiable corruption of this Government.”

Panday said UDeCOTT brings no benefit to the poor and downtrodden in society who barely live on US$2 a day.

"Our nation is in crisis and the unscrupulous acts by this corrupt PNM government speaks of the quality of governance and a grab for absolute power by a regime that has now assumed a sense of complacency displayed only under dictatorial rule," Panday said.