Trinidad Minister, husband held for misuse of State funds

In this June 2017 photograph Marlene McDonald, second from left, arrives with her husband, Michael Carew along with Sea Lots residents Cedric “Burkie” Burke, second from right and Kenroy Dopwell at the Office of the President in St Ann’s for her swearing-in ceremony.

(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.”