Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj says no contracts were awarded to Super Industrial Services Ltd (SISL) from his ministry since 2010. Maharaj’s statement was directed to T&T Guardian’s managing editor Dr Hamid Ghany one day after the Sunday Guardian published a list of SISL’s online client listing which included several government ministries and state agencies. In the letter to Ghany, Maharaj described the published list of SISL’s web site information as “misleading and mischievous.”
“It also suggests to the public that there is a political infiltration into the award of contracts,” he said. “The Ministry of Food Production has checked its records and has found that it is not a client of the Super Industrial Services Ltd,” he said in the letter. In a brief telephone interview yesterday, Maharaj said he had not contacted SISL to find out why his ministry was listed there. “I have had no contact with them, but I checked my records and I can only speak for me, but my Ministry has not given SISL any contracts,” he said.
The SISL client list, under government agencies, states that the Ministry of Agriculture was among its clients. When the People’s Partnership took office in 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture was changed to the Ministry of Food Production, Land and Marine Affairs. “So it had to have been the PNM (People’s National Movement) that SISL got contracts from,” he said.