(Trinidad Express) Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath yesterday defended his position to select a Porsche Cayenne SUV as his Ministry’s official vehicle.
This amid criticisms from Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley that Bharath was guilty of the same extravagance that he accused former prime minister Patrick Manning of displaying when it was revealed that he (Manning) had sought to buy a Bombardier private jet.
“This is like clutching at straws. This is really blowing a storm in a tea cup,” Bharath said. “Extravagance and luxury are related to the cost of something.”
He said there was no extravagance involved since the car cost just over TT$400,000.
The cost of the car to an ordinary individual would be TT$800,000 to TT$900,000. Cars purchased by ministries and government agencies are exempt from taxes and duties.
Both Bharath and Public Utilities Minister Emmanuel George have Porsches as their ministries’ vehicles.
Speaking to the Express yesterday, Bharath conceded that he “had a say” in the selection of the vehicle, but he stressed that it was a “joint” decision made by him and his Permanent Secretary (Edwina Leacock).
“This is not my personal vehicle. I have never driven this car nor used it for private purposes. If I attended Sir Ellis Clarke’s funeral, I would have done so in my capacity as a Minister of Government,” he said, responding to Rowley’s charge that he first saw the car being used for the minister at Sir Ellis’s funeral. (The car was being driven by the Ministry’s driver at this function). Bharath said he would never go to a personal or private function in the vehicle if it is not Ministry business.
Bharath said this was not “by any stretch of the imagination” the luxury car that people were talking about. “It is a basic vehicle, a four-wheel-drive and it is at the bottom of the range of this particular brand. It is not outside of the price range of the cars that the Ministry purchases all the time,” he said.
Bharath said the Ministry purchased the car a year and a half ago, in September 2010, at the end of the fiscal year, when unused funds were being returned. He said when he came into the Ministry, funds had already been allocated to replace the existing car, which was six years old.
He said the PS came to him and said they needed to replace the car which was being used to transport him because it was six years old and was becoming unreliable.
He said he told her he would rather use the money to refurbish one of the fish landing sites and address the issue of the car in the next fiscal year.
He said the PS agreed, but they could not get tenders (for the fishing ports) in time for the end of the fiscal year.
“So the monies were going to be returned as unallocated funds to the Ministry of Finance. So the PS recommended that they look again at the purchase of the car. “She said you might as well take the car because we don’t know whether or not we are going to get these monies again next year’. So it was on the basis of that that we utilised the money, which was just over TT$400,000, to buy a car which could have been a Prado, or anything else in that range. And it just so happens that this particular car happened to be in the bond (warehouse) at Lifestyle Motors.”
He stressed that it was the PS who had the final say on the purchase. Comparable vehicles such as the Land Cruiser and the BMW X5 were over TT$500,000, he added.
He said if the Ministry purchases a car and got better value from it than if it purchased another car, it would redound to the benefit of the taxpayer.
Bharath said his Ministry made an application for two of the Prados which were brought in for the Summit of the Americas because the Ministry’s fleet had become old. He said none of the Prados from the Summit was allocated to his Ministry.
It was on the basis of that, he said, that the Ministry went out to purchase a car. He said the Ministry had to purchase a car that was available at the time from a bonded warehouse because the Ministries don’t pay VAT and taxes etc.
Bharath said the vehicle could be used by anyone that the PS authorises. Asked who else has had extensive use of the vehicle outside of himself, he conceded that he had had more use of the vehicle than anyone else.
“I am not going to hide that fact,” he said. He added, however, if Rowley and Opposition MP Donna Cox were honest, they would admit that in the past under the People’s National Movement government ministry vehicles were allocated specifically for ministers’ use.
“In fact, past ministers of government used to drive the ministry’s vehicle all over the place,” the Minister stated.
Stressing that two wrongs don’t make a right, he said: “I am suggesting that I am well within the limitations placed on me by the Permanent Secretary in terms of what we can do and what we can’t do with vehicles. And I have never abused that.”
When asked if he selected a Porsche as his ministry’s vehicle, Public Utilities Emmanuel George said he had no comment. He was not prepared to confirm or deny the report.
George later told the Express he was doing his work in the Ministry and doing it well. “I am a serious worker and the truth will come out. In politics you have 100 things to do and you do 99 well and in the eyes of some people, one wrong and everyone remembers that one that is deemed to be wrong. Nobody (from the media) is calling to ask me what I am doing about water, electricity, etc. Giving people water, improving people’s life appear to be of no consequence,” he lamented.
