Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said that cabinet had made a decision in his absence to repay the CDB the sum of $142,000,following its cancellation of funding on the Yarabaqua River project.
However, he told officials to put such decision on hold.
Gonsalves said he told the officials that government would not be paying because the tenders board chairman informed him that the no objection from the CDB was very influential in making their decision to have Reliable Construction carry out the Project.
Gonsalves further stated:
” The CDB says that even though they said no objection, they could later upon review cancel the contract, but if you misprocure and it is no fault of ours why should we repay the money”
” You owe a duty of care, you can write what you want in your documents, I have raised that directly with the CDB president, when I said we were in discussion on the matter, I did not go into any details”.
Gonsalves said a high-level delegation from the CDB would be in St Vincent next week.
“They would be here to discuss the current matter and to hear first hand the objections that the government has about the manner in which the CDB has dealt with this matter”.
