{"id":1711,"date":"2009-10-06T02:29:40","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T06:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=1711"},"modified":"2009-10-06T02:29:40","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T06:29:40","slug":"derailing-uff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=1711","title":{"rendered":"Derailing Uff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsday’s Editorial<\/a>
\nTuesday, October 6 2009<\/i><\/p>\n

Calder Hart<\/a>LAST Friday\u2019s freezing of the Commission of Inquiry into Udecott until the High Court hears Udecott\u2019s case for judicial review on February 8, 2010 may look like a bolt out of the blue, but to seasoned observers it should come as no surprise. While on the surface there is a lot of confusion as to how lawyers for the Commission could possibly have ended up agreeing to such a draconian consent-order with Udecott\u2019s lawyers, we dryly note that it comes on the heels of a long list of past efforts to throw the spotlight of public accountability away from Udecott.
\n
\nWe recall that the original intention of Government was that the inquiry be done merely by a parliamentary Joint Select Committee – which would likely be chaired by a Government MP and which might not have been televised. A public outcry, however, forced the Government to agree to a commission of inquiry, but again there seemed to be an attempt by the Government to take control by the nomination to head the Commission of Mr Gordon Deane.<\/p>\n

With the inquiry underway, there were other apparent efforts to throw it off track.<\/p>\n

We recall that last Friday\u2019s freeze was not the first legal action by Udecott which in May had got a stay of commission\u2019s proceedings. That time Udecott had claimed that a letter from commission chairman, Prof John Uff \u2014 which alleged that Calder Hart enjoyed excessive power in Udecott, and that Udecott has an \u201cimproper and potentially corrupt influence \u201cover tendering \u2014 had violated natural justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

We also recall the sidetracking of the Uff Inquiry into the matter of Cleaver Heights involving claims about the relatively minor sum of $10 million \u2014 compared to the billions of dollars otherwise under the Commission\u2019s scrutiny.<\/p>\n

This certainly looked like a red herring to us.<\/p>\n

Last December, we recall, Udecott had to be upbraided by Prof Uff for the late submission of documents to the inquiry.<\/p>\n

There were other events that occurred that acted to delay the inquiry. Last week in the Senate, Opposition Senator Wade Mark, alleged that the Government had set up the whole inquiry to be \u201ca put-up job\u201d and \u201ca cook up\u201d, and called the names of several key actors in the inquiry, including the Commission\u2019s attorneys.<\/p>\n

Aside from all the dazzling legalisms, one must remember a few simple facts about the background to this whole matter. The inquiry came after the firing of Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley for alleged \u201cwajang\u201d conduct after he had complained that Udecott gave little accountability in its costly projects such as the Tarouba Stadium ($756 million), Chancery Lane Complex ($732 million), the Port-of-Spain Waterfront ($1.6 billion) and the Academy of Performing Arts.<\/p>\n

The inquiry itself has found that not only does Udecott operate outside of its then-line Minister (Dr Rowley), but it even violates its own rules, with Prof Uff calling Udecott, \u201ca law unto themselves.\u201d It was also discovered that Mr Hart shared the same fax number as a firm which Udecott had hired \u2014 CH Development International \u2014 and that Mr Hart\u2019s wife, Mrs Sherrine Hart, has a brother and brother-in-law who were directors in CH Development\/Sunway, the firm which got the contract to build the $368 million Ministry of Legal Affairs tower.<\/p>\n

So there are certainly huge stakes involved in this inquiry, and there have apparently been many attempts to throw it off track.<\/p>\n

We also note the glaring contrast in the many top public appointments which Mr Hart continues to enjoy despite all these question-marks over him (as he heads Udecott, Trinidad and Tobago Mortgage Finance Company, and National Insurance Board among others), while on the other hand no Integrity Commission exists, and the Government made only acting appointments to the posts of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and Commissioner of Police (CoP), all of which are key offices that would need to act on any findings of the Uff Commission. We also pose the question asked by many, if the Government is genuinely committed to accountability, but Udecott isn\u2019t, why doesn\u2019t the Government replace the Udecott board?<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newsday.co.tt\/editorial\/0,108631.html<\/p>\n

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog’s URL for this article:
\nwww.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=1711<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsday’s Editorial Tuesday, October 6 2009 LAST Friday\u2019s freezing of the Commission of Inquiry into Udecott until the High Court hears Udecott\u2019s case for judicial review on February 8, 2010 may look like a bolt out of the blue, but to seasoned observers it should come as no surprise. While on the surface there is … Continue reading Derailing Uff<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,178,30,7,26],"tags":[48,82,1015,49,1020],"class_list":["post-1711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-media","category-pnm","category-politics","category-udecott","tag-calder-hart","tag-patrick-manning","tag-politics","tag-tt-govt","tag-udecott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}