Ghost gangs on CEPEP payrollBy RIA TAITT Saturday, March 3 2007
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EMPTY HOUSE: The Government benches were sparsely occupied yesterday as the House of Representatives debated a private member's motion by Caroni East ...
There are ghost gangs on the CEPEP payroll.
This is the finding of a report of the Central Audit Committee of the Ministry of Finance, according to Central East MP Ganga Singh.
Singh was piloting a private motion on CEPEP in the House of Representatives yesterday. He said he received “in my mailbox” a copy of the report, a document which has not been made public.
Singh pointed out that at least three times the report referred to gangs. He said the first reference came as the Finance Committee reported that there were names of workers on the payroll without ID card numbers or bank account numbers, which is in breach of the payment system.
“It may be indicative of dummies on the payroll,” it said. The report then noted that some contractors were paid for as many as 11 teams (of workers) on a continuous basis but there was no authority for this variation from the operating policies and procedures.
“This situation may be indicative of the existence of ghost gangs,” the report noted again. He said the report also pointed out that no updated list was submitted to the Solid Waste Management Co Ltd (SWMCOL) by contractors and that the only list which had been given was done in the first year of the operation of the programme. He said the report also stated that there was no evidence of the connection between receipt of services and payment. “Therefore opportunities for services not provided — ghost gangs — exist and can go unnoticed,” the report said.
“Mr Speaker this is the Ministry of Finance saying that there are indications of the existence of ghost gangs in CEPEP,” Singh thundered.
“It is billion dollar pork barrel politics and the pigs at the trough are the friends and family of the PNM in a feeding frenzy,” he said. Singh said while CEPEP was creating millionaires among the contractors, the workers were making $1,500 a month.
Singh said the report also found that the stock of blank cheques was not properly monitored and that cheques were reported missing.
The report, he said, noted that there was no evidence that statutory deductions such as NIS, PAYE, were remitted to the appropriate authorities. The report also stated that there were no valid contract documents and no valid workmen’s compensation and public liability insurance.
Singh said this meant that if anyone was injured on CEPEP they had no compensation to receive. He said the report noted that on 24 of the 36 contracts examined each had one page of an insurance policy stamped “Telly Paul General Insurance Services” but the entire policy was not available and there was no proof that it was up-to-date and premiums paid. “The system has broken down completely,” Singh said, adding that the “malady was deep.”
Singh said CEPEP’s “first millionaire” was Jackie Lazarus, the former campaign manager for Diego Martin West MP Keith Rowley, who was paid $1.9 million and who received as a service fee $25 per month for every worker hired in CEPEP, “a steal of a deal.”
Singh said there was evidence that Public Utilities Minister Pennelope Beckles wrote to SWMCOL head, Ray Brathwaite asking for information on certain areas. But, Singh said, Brathwaite ignored Beckles’ requests “because he had a direct line to the Minister of Finance (Patrick Manning).” Singh said Brathwaite was only prepared to report directly to the Corporation Sole. Saying that it was clear that there was corruption in the tendering of CEPEP contracts, Singh said a whopping $1.6 billion had been spent on CEPEP since its inception.
