(Trinidad Guardian) Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Farley Augustine is accusing one contractor, who is owed millions of dollars by the THA, of seeking to blackmail his executive into paying a $60 million sum due using the recently leaked audio clip.
Speaking during a recorded broadcast yesterday, Augustine, who admitted he was one of the persons in the clip, said he was sent the audio clip, which features two voices discussing plans to hire persons in the THA to promote political propaganda for the Tobago People’s Party, in March of this year, some two months before it became public.
“When I received this recording on March 13, you see how long I received it and the threat that it will be placed in the public domain. I asked a mutual friend (to) find out from this madman what all of this is about.”
Augustine explained that the intention was to force the THA to pay up the monies owed.
“He said ‘well, if you don’t pay up we will embarrass you. If you don’t you will have a hard time, a difficult time.’ Fortunately, that mutual acquaintance decided to send me the screenshot. He didn’t just send the messages he sent screenshots after it was leaked to the public on May 25,” Augustine said.
Augustine contended that the contractor wanted all the outstanding funds paid.
“Some people believe that the state purse belongs to them and so you must not be owed. Others must wait for eternity. Sue the THA for the money and when you decide you want the money, you must get it or else you will threaten all sorts of stuff.”
However, he said the THA had started to clear the debt owed to contractors. He said to date, they had paid the contractor $25.2 million. However, he said “the contractor, who has received the largest payout, is the one attempting to extort more monies from the THA.”
He said the company has taken legal action against the THA, adding this was part of the reason the THA could not pay out any monies owed.
Augustine said he had also been receiving threats since he received the audio clip, including against his family and members of his executive and supporters. He said the head of TTPS’ Special Investigations Unit (SIU) had also spoken to him about plots that could be “detrimental” to his life, while two THA secretaries had also received threats.
He claimed the individual had also threatened to release a recording which would expose an alleged sexual relationship he (Augustine) had with a mutual acquaintance of theirs.
“Some people feel because they Godfather powerful, they could run Tobago. But the last time I check, there is one Chief Secretary in charge of Tobago and this executive.”
Addressing the audio clip, Augustine said it was an old recording of a closed-door strategy session which they never carried through with.
“You discuss all strategies, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, indifferent, everything…you look at the possibility, you go home you sleep on it and you come back again…,” he said.
“But I’m glad this is out because it showed that we discussed it, we considered it and when you look at the facts, we ain’t hire no team nowhere,” Augustine said.
He said he believed former deputy chief secretary Watson Duke had leaked the clip, since the latter was one of the persons who had attempted to intercede in the payment dispute on the contractor’s behalf.
“In fact, that was perhaps the last meeting we had prior to his departure to New York where he (Duke) infamously ex-communicated himself from the THA,” he claimed.
