Trinidad Minister, husband held for misuse of State funds

(Trinidad Guardian) The res­ur­rec­tion of a six-year-old in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged si­phon­ing of over $1 mil­lion from a gov­ern­ment min­istry to three or­gan­i­sa­tions linked to fam­i­ly and friends cul­mi­nat­ed in the ar­rest of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald and her hus­band yesterday.

Of­fi­cers of the Fraud Squad swooped down on Mc­Don­ald’s home at Val­ley View, Mara­cas, St Joseph, where they ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant and took away sev­er­al items.

The chain of dra­mat­ic events trig­gered sev­er­al re­ac­tions as to what this meant for the rul­ing PNM and the up­com­ing elec­tions. In 2015 and 2018 Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to bring Mc­Don­ald, a key plat­form cam­paign­er, back in­to his Cab­i­net even though the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­re­solved.

But the sit­u­a­tion is like­ly to change if the po­lice charge Mc­Don­ald with crim­i­nal of­fences, in­clud­ing mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. Row­ley told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that he was await­ing the out­come of the po­lice probe.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a hand-picked team of of­fi­cers un­der Snr Supt To­taram Dookhie had been qui­et­ly gath­er­ing cor­rob­o­rat­ing ev­i­dence and had been li­ais­ing with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions through­out the high-pro­file in­quiry.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were ex­pect­ed to ask Mc­Don­ald and her hus­band, Michael Carew, point­ed ques­tions re­lat­ing to the re­quest, ap­proval and dis­tri­b­u­tion of state funds through three NGOs— the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, Wa­ter­wheel Foun­da­tion and a third en­ti­ty—which were al­leged­ly mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed.

A terse state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed pub­lished me­dia re­ports that Mc­Don­ald and her hus­band had been ar­rest­ed and tak­en in­to cus­tody.

“They were de­tained ear­li­er to­day…in­quiries are on­go­ing at this time and more in­for­ma­tion will be pro­vid­ed when it be­comes avail­able,” it added.

Out­side the min­is­ter’s home in Val­ley View, St Joseph on Thurs­day, of­fi­cers were seen mov­ing in and out of the premis­es. They ap­peared to be search­ing.

One neigh­bour who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the of­fi­cers ar­rived short­ly af­ter 6.30 am. Al­most five hours lat­er, at around 11.24 am the of­fi­cers left Mc­Don­ald’s home with a bun­dle of doc­u­ments.

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to de­ter­mine if Mc­Don­ald was still on the com­pound dur­ing the search as of­fi­cers seemed to de­lib­er­ate­ly ma­noeu­vre their ve­hi­cles in her dri­ve­way to block the me­dia. The dark­ly-tint­ed ve­hi­cles left the com­pound be­fore noon.

How­ev­er, just af­ter 3 pm, Guardian Me­dia was able to con­firm that Mc­Don­ald was tak­en to the Fraud Squad of­fices on Aber­crom­by Street in Port-of-Spain and lat­er tak­en to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion where she re­mained up to press time. Her at­tor­ney, Pamela El­der SC, was al­so seen at the po­lice sta­tion.

Po­lice al­so searched Mc­Don­ald’s con­stituen­cy of­fice on Pic­cadil­ly Street, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

How the in­ves­ti­ga­tion evolved

These al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct have dogged Mc­Don­ald for years. Back in 2013, Mc­Don­ald said she claimed some­one was tar­get­ing her and planned to seek le­gal ad­vice on the mat­ter.

Noth­ing ever came of that but, in 2015, she was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Hous­ing.

Guardian Me­dia was told that Mc­Don­ald and Carew were be­ing ques­tioned about their al­leged con­nec­tions to the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, the Wa­ter­wheel Foun­da­tion, and a third NGO about monies dis­bursed to those or­gan­i­sa­tions from the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture.

The al­le­ga­tions against the duo point to ap­pli­ca­tions for state fund­ing made to the min­istry, then head­ed by Mc­Don­ald, which were al­leged­ly fast-tracked and ap­proved by the min­is­ter. The mon­ey, which was dis­bursed via cheques signed by the then Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Her­mia Tyson-Cuffie, the wife of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Max­ie Cuffie, was to be used for char­i­ta­ble work but was al­leged­ly mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed.

In 2014, Guardian Me­dia broke the sto­ry that a group named TnT­Whistle­blow­er sought to ex­pose Mc­Don­ald to pro­tect the par­ty.

The group emailed a list of al­le­ga­tions against Mc­Don­ald to PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley which in­clud­ed al­le­ga­tions of Mc­Don­ald’s in­volve­ment in NGO’s, in­clud­ing the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion.

The Cal­abar Foun­da­tion was reg­is­tered on Au­gust 24, 2010, list­ing Carew, his broth­er Lennox Carew and Mc­Don­ald’s friend Vic­tor McEachrane as di­rec­tors.

The reg­is­tered of­fice for Cal­abar Foun­da­tion is the same as Carew’s list­ed ad­dress on the doc­u­ments.

In an ap­par­ent re­sponse to the claims, the PNM pro­duced a let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 23, 2013, from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion which cleared Mc­Don­ald of any breach­es of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­Wlic Life Act.

The let­ter did not spec­i­fy what is­sue was be­fore the com­mis­sion.

The mat­ter seemed to die a nat­ur­al death and noth­ing fur­ther came of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

That same year fresh ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion re­lat­ing to the same mat­ter in­volv­ing the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was re­opened.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, based on the ques­tions posed to the three for­mer em­ploy­ees named above, seemed to be cen­tred on the mon­ey do­nat­ed to the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, the Wa­ter­wheel Foun­da­tion and al­le­ga­tions that a rel­a­tive was list­ed and paid as a min­is­te­r­i­al dri­ver, al­though he was re­sid­ing abroad.

In De­cem­ber 2014, Mc­Don­ald said she was un­aware her com­pan­ion was linked to the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion even though he was list­ed as a di­rec­tor in the com­pa­nies reg­istry.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­clud­ed ver­i­fy­ing the names of peo­ple who col­lect­ed cheques from the min­istry.

WHAT DR ROW­LEY SAID:

JUNE 2017—MC DON­ALD REAP­POINT­ED

“Those in­ves­ti­ga­tions to my knowl­edge have tak­en place by the au­thor­i­ty whose job it is to de­ter­mine whether a per­son in pub­lic life has con­duct­ed him or her­self in a man­ner in keep­ing with the tenets of the In­tegri­ty of Pub­lic life Act.”

JU­LY 2017 —MC­DON­ALD FIRED

“The Gov­ern­ment’s in­abil­i­ty, and not just this gov­ern­ment but oth­er gov­ern­ments in­abil­i­ty to prop­er­ly re­spond to the threat of crim­i­nal­i­ty in T&T is be­cause of a close­ness be­tween Gov­ern­ment per­son­nel and per­sons who en­gage in crim­i­nal con­duct and noth­ing that sup­ports that is to be en­cour­aged in any form or fash­ion.”

MARCH 2018—MC DON­ALD REAP­POINT­ED

“The last time I checked the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of ap­point­ing any per­son to the Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go lies with the Prime Min­is­ter and I am not aware that is cir­cum­scribed by any cor­re­spon­dence to or from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.”