Akash Sama­roo

For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is de­fend­ing the award of a $3 mil­lion con­tract to a com­pa­ny al­leged­ly linked to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), in­sist­ing it was nec­es­sary to ur­gent­ly ad­dress a wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­na­tion cri­sis af­fect­ing Point Fortin res­i­dents—and had noth­ing to do with the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Gon­za­les was re­spond­ing to cur­rent Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, who ac­cused the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion of award­ing a “sole se­lect con­tract of $3.1 mil­lion” to a PNM cam­paign man­ag­er and sub-agent days be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.