The Anti-Corruption Investigating Bureau raided the offices of three contracting companies yesterday—Namalco Construction Services Ltd, TN Ramnauth & Company Ltd and Motilal Ramhit and Sons Construction Ltd.
This was confirmed by attorney Om Lalla, who represents the La Brea-based Namalco. Lalla said he was told the officers were led by Superintendent Alexander.
In an interview yesterday, Lalla described the raid on Namalco as an attempt to damage the company’s reputation in light of its ongoing lawsuit against the Estate Management and Business Development Company (EMBD).
“The police have executed search warrants on Namalco Construction Services Ltd, TN Ramnauth & Company Ltd and Motilal Ramhit and Sons Construction Ltd in relation to contracts with the various government agencies,” Lalla said.
“Namalco has a matter pending before the High Court, a $1.2 billion claim against EMBD for works done and the matter is far advanced before the courts and all the pleadings as they call it are closed, a trial date is set and today they decide they want to execute search warrants for the very documents that are before the court, which is quite alarming.”
“We view this as not only a malicious and clandestine act by the police but an attempt to damage the reputation and prejudice the matter which is before the court,” Lalla added.
On May 6, 2016, Namalco’s attorneys filed action in the Port-of-Spain High Court, suing the EMBD for over $1.2 billion in unpaid bills. The EMBD is mandated to manage and develop agricultural land held by the State across T&T.
The company claimed that the damages being sought represented unpaid fees for six construction contracts performed for the EMBD over five years. The company maintained that it was not paid despite completing the projects and having them approved by an independent engineering company, as stipulated in its contracts with EMBD.
In November 2016, an audit of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) revealed that TN Ramnauth & Company Ltd and Motilal Ramhit and Sons Construction Ltd had received over $2 billion in contracts from the People’s Partnership government between 2011 and 2015.
Up until 4 pm yesterday, Lalla said the officers were still on the compound of the contractors.
He said Namalco’s High Court matter came up for hearing yesterday and a trial date has already been set for June 2018 without any counter-claim of wrongdoing or corruption by Namalco from the state.
“It (lawsuit) is well advanced, there are preliminary applications before the court, the defence has been filed, the counter-claims and all the documents are in it is an advanced state of litigation and there is no claim against Namalco for fraud, corruption, wrongdoing. This matter has been in court over a year.”
He said the officers seemed to be looking for documents that Namalco planned to use to support the company’s claim in the High Court.
“The documents that they want to take are documents that will support Namalco’s argument in the High Court matter and as part of a discovery process in any court proceedings, you are meant to produce your original documents - if the police take the original documents or tamper or interfere with them or add documents to them, it could interfere with the course of this matter.”
Lalla said Namalco will have to wait to see what documents the officers seize before deciding their way forward.