Hansard - Parliament

44
2012.05.08
for “voops, vaps and vaille que vaille.” [Desk thumping] Just “vooping”.
And as you know, Mr. President, as I told you, I am ready to go. As you
know, I do not trust this Government. You know that, Mr. President.
Without apology, I do not and cannot trust them. So any time any measure
comes before us. [Interruption] Mr. President, I am being disturbed by the
Leader of Government Business.
Mr. President: Senators, if we may listen to Sen. Hinds in silence.
Thank you.
Sen. F. Hinds: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Any time any Bill
comes here or any measure that has to do with procurement, my suspicious
element is acutely aroused. I do not trust them. Because I can tell you—and
I have evidence—they are running rampant across all the enterprises in
Trinidad and Tobago—rampant! I have no fear of that. Let them take me to
the Privileges Committee. I have evidence!
Mr. President, what we are pursuing, hopefully, is optimum efficiency.
The Minister told us that there is a problem of delay in terms of the
tendering procedure and so on, and he went on to explain. He said they do
not have enough people to place on the four evaluating committees. What
he means is that each one of the regional authorities, the four in Trinidad—
leave aside Tobago because that is for the Tobago House of Assembly—they
have to organize an evaluating committee. Well, for this Government, an
evaluating committee is a waste of time, because we have evidence—I have
in my possession, evidence where in T&TEC, for example, an evaluating
committee sat and decided on a contract and it was completely ignored. I
have evidence in the EFCL, the Education Facilities, where evaluations were
done and completely ignored.