Mickela Panday challenged the government’s handling of a reported national security threat and raised fresh doubts about procurement and housing deals.
Pa-tri-ot-ic Front leader Mick-ela Pan-day is ques-tion-ing the Gov-ern-ment’s trans-paren-cy and ac-count-abil-i-ty amid con-cerns sur-round-ing pro-cure-ment and hous-ing con-tracts, while al-so rais-ing con-cerns about the tim-ing of re-ports sur-round-ing an al-leged na-tion-al se-cu-ri-ty threat.. Her com-ments come af-ter At-tor-ney Gen-er-al John Je-re-mie re-vealed in Par-lia-ment on Wednes-day that a na-tion-al se-cu-ri-ty in-ci-dent sparked by a gang mem-ber last Fri-day, had trig-gered height-ened pro-tec-tion for MPs and cer-tain Gov-ern-ment of-fi-cials.. Je-re-mie said he was au-tho-rised by
Po-lice Com-mis-sion-er Al-lis-ter Gue-var-ro to dis-close the mat-ter dur-ing de-bate on leg-is-la-tion to es-tab-lish a pa-role sys-tem.. Gue-var-ro lat-er con-firmed the sit-u-a-tion.. In a me-dia state-ment yes-ter-day, Pan-day said, “Cit-i-zens did not vote for one un-ac-count-able gov-ern-ment to be re-placed by an-oth-er.. They want-ed trans-paren-cy, fair-ness and ac-count-abil-i-ty.” She ques-tioned whether the fo-cus on the re-port-ed se-cu-ri-ty threat was dis-tract-ing from scruti-ny over pro-cure-ment mat-ters.. “No one ob-jects to of-fi-cials be-ing pro-tect-ed where there is
a re-al threat.. But that can-not be-come a con-ve-nient shield from ac-count-abil-i-ty.. A Gov-ern-ment can-not ask the pub-lic to fo-cus on se-cu-ri-ty for of-fi-cials while avoid-ing ques-tions about pub-lic mon-ey.” Pan-day al-so point-ed to re-ports that the Of-fice of Pro-cure-ment Reg-u-la-tion (OPR) was in-ves-ti-gat-ing con-cerns in-volv-ing Land-mark-TT Prop-er-ties Lim-it-ed and its han-dling of the pro-cure-ment process for the $100 mil-lion Al-lam-by Res-i-den-tial De-vel-op-ment project in Corinth, San Fer-nan-do and the di-rec-tive to the Hous-ing De-vel-op-ment
Cor-po-ra-tion to pause the award of $3.4 bil-lion in hous-ing con-tracts pend-ing a re-view of pro-cure-ment pro-ceed-ings.. “These are not mi-nor is-sues.. They in-volve pub-lic mon-ey, pub-lic land, pub-lic con-tracts and pub-lic trust.. The peo-ple de-serve to know who ben-e-fits, who ap-proved what and whether these process-es were fair, trans-par-ent and law-ful.” She said the Gov-ern-ment must an-swer ques-tions re-lat-ing both to crime and the pro-tec-tion of pub-lic funds.. “The peo-ple de-serve pro-tec-tion from crim-i-nals..
They al-so de-serve pro-tec-tion from cor-rup-tion,” Pan-day said.
Mickela Panday, John Jeremie, national security incident, Office of Procurement Regulation, housing contracts pause, Landmark-TT Properties