By LARA PICKFORD-GORDON Friday, July 23 2010

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TO BE AUCTIONED: A fleet SUVs, used in the Summit of the Americas and ChoGM seen parked at VMCOTT, still await their distribution to various Ministrie...

The TT Police Service will receive 75 of the 200 vehicle fleet purchased by the PNM government for the Fifth Summit of the Americas and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHoGM).

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar made the announcement yesterday at the weekly post- Cabinet media briefing. She disclosed that disbursement of the fleet had already started under the previous administration with the Cabinet deciding on March 25 to give two vehicles to the government of Grenada for its “security detail” for Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, and 60 vehicles were given to the local police service. Persad-Bissessar said she had no details of the arrangement in which the two vehicles were given to the Grenadian government.

A total of 110 vehicles were purchased at a cost of $42.463 million, $22.731 million was spent for 110 vehicles for the Summit and $19.731 million for a further 90 for the ChoGM.

Persad-Bissessar said, “The remaining vehicles have been sitting there at taxpayers cost. Monies were spent on these vehicles so we decided on the request of Ag CoP Philbert on behalf of the Police Service that we will give 75 of the vehicles that remain”.

She said several ministries will be assigned some of the vehicles and the remaining 33 will be sold by public auction.

Persad-Bissessar said, “The proceeds of sale will be placed in the Children’s Life Fund. I am advised that given the costs we will recover at the public auction, and the fact they were sitting there relatively new, we should recover some substantial millions to place in the Life Fund to save the lives of our children”.

Responding to a question Persad-Bissessar said it was “most unusual”for vehicles to be given to another government without any public announcement being made. She also said there were instances in which equipment was loaned to governments, and notes taken to Cabinet to pay the maintenance cost. “There was a fire tender in one instance. A lot of very unusual things happened,”she said.