The controversial Point Fortin Highway Project is to go before a Joint Select Committee of Parliament for review.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, delivering a statement to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, said there are far too many unanswered questions surrounding the multi-billion-dollar contract awarded to Brazilian construction firm, OAS Construtora.

“On March 4th, 2011, the UNC government, through NIDCO, awarded a Design-Build Contract to a Brazilian firm Construtora OAS SA (“OAS”) for the lump sum of approximately TTD$5.2Billion. This was $1.6 billion more than the original engineer’s estimate,” the PM told the Lower House.

He added: “A few weeks after the UNC came into office and met this project on the table for consideration of an award of a contract for continuation of construction, an interested group of known high level Brazilian executive of OAS, flew by Dassault private jet, from Rio de Janeiro Brazil to Durban in South Africa, in pursuit of the said contract. Those executives then travelled by car to Johannesburg for the singular purpose of meeting a member of the Cabinet of Trinidad and Tobago, a Minister responsible for and involved in the decision on this project. This secret meeting between the UNC Minister responsible for the project and the OAS took place at the Michael Angelo Towers in Johannesburg during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.”

The Prime Minister said no member of the UNC government has ever acknowledged that this meeting took place “nor has any one of them ever attempted to explain what was the purpose and outcome of this trans-Atlantic secret meeting on the eve of an award of this multi-billion contract which was hurriedly wrapped up here in Trinidad, after the World Cup.”