Derek Achong

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has cleared the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) in two in­ves­ti­ga­tions which were raised by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign of the THA's elec­tions in Jan­u­ary.One of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­lates to the pro­posed $250 mil­lion Ba­co­let Aquat­ic and In­door Sports Com­plex while the oth­er per­tains to a com­mu­ni­ty mi­cro project pro­gramme which was ini­ti­at­ed by the THA be­tween May 2008 and Ju­ly 2009.

The THA an­nounced the com­mis­sion's de­ci­sions in the cas­es in a press re­lease yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.In the re­lease, the THA said its Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don was con­tact­ed re­cent­ly by the com­mis­sion's reg­is­trar, Matin Far­rell, who in­formed him the com­mis­sion de­cid­ed to ter­mi­nate the in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter it de­ter­mined that there was in­suf­fi­cient grounds to con­tin­ue.The de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate the in­ves­ti­ga­tions was made un­der Sec­tion 34(6) of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act which states:

"Where dur­ing the course of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the com­mis­sion is sat­is­fied that there are in­suf­fi­cient grounds for con­tin­u­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or that the com­plaint is friv­o­lous, vex­a­tious or not made in good faith, it may ter­mi­nate the in­ves­ti­ga­tion."The re­lease al­so made spe­cial men­tion of the com­mis­sion's on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the $142 Mil­shirv Ad­min­stra­tion Com­plex in Shir­van, To­ba­go.

Af­ter is­sues on the project were raised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan filed a ju­di­cial re­view chal­leng­ing the THA's de­ci­sion to en­ter in­to a form of fi­nanc­ing, known as Build, Own, Lease, Trans­fer (BOLT) for project.The THA's re­lease not­ed that in Ju­ly, State at­tor­neys were grant­ed a con­sent or­der to con­vert the law­suit in­to a statu­to­ry in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the THA's pow­ers un­der the THA Act, Chap: 25:03.

The re­lease quot­ed Lon­don, who spoke at post Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing, yes­ter­day.Lon­don said the THA's po­si­tion on the is­sue was the same as in the amend­ed law­suit.He added: "All that had to be done was to ask the court for an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law as had been done on five pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, in­volv­ing var­i­ous cen­tral gov­ern­ments and the as­sem­bly. This was in that sil­ly sea­son and now things have set­tled down, good sense has pre­vailed and we await the de­ci­sion of the court."

Lon­don ac­knowl­edged that it was Ram­lo­gan's right to chal­lenge the de­ci­sion. How­ev­er, he crit­i­cised Ram­lo­gan for politi­cis­ing the is­sue and for un­rea­son­ably "cast­ing as­per­sions on the char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty of the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved."When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day evening, Ram­lo­gan de­scribed Lon­don's com­ments as high­ly im­prop­er.He said the Mil­shirv mat­ter was be­fore the courts and should not be com­ment­ed on.

"He is ir­re­spon­si­ble and ab­surd in his rush to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points at the ex­pense of the re­spect for the ad­min­stra­tion of jus­tice," Ram­lo­gan added.He ex­plained the Mil­shirv law­suit in­clud­ed two third par­ties–State-owned bank First Cit­i­zen, who fi­nanced the project, and the de­vel­op­er Mil­shirv Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed.He said af­ter the law­suit was amend­ed af­ter both third par­ties sub­mit­ted that they should not have been in­clud­ed as they were not part of the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process.

"There is no rea­son for him to howl and beat his chest on this mat­ter that is await­ing ju­di­cial pro­nounce­ment," Ram­lo­gan said.