THE UNITED NATIONAL CONGRESS has questions to answer on the multi-million dollar contract with the Brazilian firm, Construtora OAS SA for the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension project, says the Prime Minister.
In a statement posted to his Facebook page on Wednesday, Dr Rowley said the $850 million arbitration award to OAS was stopped and taxpayers' money recovered.
"Today, Wednesday, December 14, 2022, the High Court ruled in favour of the taxpayers of Trinidad and Tobago, in a matter being contested between state-owned NIDCO and OAS, the contractor hired to build the Highway from Golconda to Pt Fortin.
"...The decision of the arbitrator was appealed. Today the taxpayers (Nidco) won that appeal and a payment of $921 million that was to be paid to the contractor, has been stopped. Today taxpayers’ money has been recovered."
On Wednesday, Justice Frank Seepersad set aside the arbitration award and sent the issues raised by Nidco back to the arbitration panel for their reconsideration.
The partial award to OAS was made on April 16 and the tribunal ruled that Nidco must pay OAS a total of US$126 million ($857 million) and this could have increased by an additional $100 million in legal, professional and other fees.
In his statement, Rowley said to protect taxpayers there was a clause in the original contract that required, in the event of bankruptcy on the part of the contractor, the insurance bonds securing the contract, would go to the client, in this case, Nidco.
"During the execution of the works, the contractor went bankrupt (judicial management) in Brazil amidst widespread allegations of corruption," Rowley said.
He added, "TT taxpayers must take note that on the last working day before the general elections of 2015, (September 4th, 2015) the then Government secretly and mysteriously removed the relevant clause which protected the taxpayers’ interest in this billion-dollar project.
"The result of this removal of the bankruptcy clause in the contract was that the contractor was allowed to leave with almost $1 billion of taxpayers’ money.
"Had there not been a change of government, this secret gift to a foreign contractor would have gone unnoticed by the people of TT," he said.
The Prime Minister said after entering office in September 2015, the PNM administration discovered "this travesty" and took immediate, firm legal action in the courts abroad to recover taxpayers' money.
He also provided a history of the matter through the courts: "Nidco won the matter and nine hundred and twenty-one million ($921 m) dollars were returned to the state company on condition that it be used on the project. This victory allowed the stalled highway to Point Fortin project to be restarted and is now close to completion."
OAS, he said, subsequently, "resorted to arbitration and after that process, the adjudicator ruled in favour of the contractor."
"It is interesting to note that when this happened, the UNC parliamentarians, some of whom are the same people who have questions to answer with respect to th
