Com­mis­sions of en­quiry are ex­pen­sive.

The last four com­mis­sions of en­quiry which were held in this coun­try have cost tax­pay­ers in ex­cess of $600 mil­lion. They have not led to a sin­gle ar­rest or any­one be­ing held to ac­count.

The li­on’s share of that bill was the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the fail­ure of CL Fi­nan­cial, Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny, Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank and the Hin­du Cred­it Union Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety which be­gan in March 2011 and end­ed in May 2013.

Ad­dress­ing the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on March 9, 2019 then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said that the en­tire bill for that en­quiry had crossed the $500 mil­lion mark.

Chaired by Sir An­tho­ny Col­man the en­quiry in­volved five mil­lion pages of doc­u­ments and 77 lawyers

The sec­ond most ex­pen­sive of the four re­cent com­mis­sions of en­quiries was the one man­dat­ed to en­quire in­to par­tic­u­lar as­pects of this coun­try’s con­struc­tion sec­tor, in­clud­ing the prac­tices and meth­ods of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT), and to make rec­om­men­da­tions and ob­ser­va­tions to pro­mote among oth­er things val­ue for mon­ey, high stan­dards of work­man­ship, and in­tegri­ty and trans­paren­cy.

On April 13, 2011 then min­is­ter of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal told the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives said the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the con­struc­tion sec­tor chaired by Prof John Uff had cost tax­pay­ers $46.2 mil­lion.

The first hear­ing com­menced on Jan­u­ary 12, 2009 and end­ed on De­cem­ber 10, 2009.

The third most ex­pen­sive was the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup which was staged by in­sur­gents from the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen.

On May 28, 2013, then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan told the Up­per House that the to­tal cost of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the at­tempt­ed coup, in­clu­sive of salaries for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices ren­dered, ad­min­is­tra­tive costs and oth­er in­ci­den­tals was $31.8 mil­lion.

In ad­di­tion to this on Sep­tem­ber 8 2016, prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in ad­dress­ing a post Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence said the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Las Al­turas res­i­den­tial tow­ers had cost $24.5 mil­lion.

“Over and above the $24.5 mil­lion dol­lars that was paid to sup­port the en­quiry by The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, UDe­COTT and the HDC would have paid a num­ber of large mil­lions to lawyers to ap­pear and par­tic­i­pate in this cha­rade,” Row­ley said.

This com­mis­sion of en­quiry was set up to in­ves­ti­gate the con­struc­tion of the Las Al­turas Tow­ers at La­dy Young Gar­dens, Mor­vant. 

For­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in 2014 ap­point­ed the com­mis­sion af­ter two mul­ti-sto­ry units of the hous­ing project be­gan falling apart af­ter con­struc­tion and were ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion.

The Com­mis­sion held pub­lic sit­tings and over 25 wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied.

So com­mis­sions are a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar ex­pense.

And ac­cord­ing to Row­ley we are ex­pect­ed to be hav­ing a next one soon.

Ear­li­er this month speak­ing dur­ing Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley an­nounced that he would es­tab­lish­ing a com­mis­sion of en­quiry to in­ves­ti­gate the trag­ic death of divers Yusuf Hen­ry, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Fyzal Kur­ban and Rishi Na­gas­sar on Feb­ru­ary 25.

Row­ley had orig­i­nal­ly an­nounced the for­ma­tion of a five-mem­ber com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter but af­ter the nom­i­nee from the En­er­gy Cham­ber, Eu­gene Tiah, re­moved him­self from the process af­ter ob­jec­tions were raised by the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress it was scrapped in place for the com­mis­sion of en­quiry.

“We have to can­cel that and we are go­ing to have a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry be­cause ap­par­ent­ly, that is what would sat­is­fy,” he said.

But are com­mis­sions of en­quiry worth the mon­ey be­ing spent?

To an­swer that ques­tion the Busi­ness Guardian reached out to at­tor­ney Justin Phelps.

Phelps was coun­sel to the 2003 com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port led by for­mer Chief Jus­tice Clin­ton Bernard.

He al­so ap­peared as coun­sel for an in­ter­est­ed par­ty in the 2011 CLI­CO Com­mis­sion of In­quiry Chaired by Sir An­tho­ny Col­man and at the 2014 Las Al­turas In­quiry led by Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim.

Phelps has most re­cent­ly ad­vised par­ties in­ter­est­ed in the pro­posed Point Fortin High­way In­quiry which is yet to be­gin.

“The short an­swer to whether the in­quiry is worth the cost to the tax­pay­er is that the fam­i­lies should have a prop­er ac­count of the cause of the deaths of their rel­a­tives at what­ev­er cost. In mon­ey terms, that is mea­sure­less,” Phelps said.

An­oth­er at­tor­ney who was deeply in­volved in an­oth­er com­mis­sion of en­quiry said an ex­am­ple of how ben­e­fi­cial com­mis­sions of en­quiry can be is the im­pact the Uff re­port had on the con­struc­tion sec­tor.

The Uff re­port made 56 gen­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions along with 35 oth­ers for spe­cif­ic projects that they fo­cused on.

The source stat­ed that these rec­om­men­da­tions out­lined the best prac­tice for com­pli­ance in the con­struc­tion sec­tor.

He there­fore said the mon­ey spent was worth it.

This view is al­so in line with the com­ments made by re­tired Que­bec Su­pe­ri­or Court Jus­tice John Gomery in 2006 dur­ing a lec­ture look­ing at pros and cons of com­mis­sions of in­quiry.

“The crit­i­cism that com­mis­sions cost too much is valid if one takes the po­si­tion that a price can be put up­on the search for truth and jus­tice, but I think that it is gen­er­al­ly be­lieved that in a so­ci­ety gov­erned by the rule of law, cit­i­zens ac­cept that what­ev­er the cost, it is de­sir­able that the le­gal re­quire­ments of the jus­tice sys­tem be ob­served. This be­ing said, the ser­vices of top lawyers and foren­sic ac­coun­tants are very ex­pen­sive, and some­times the to­tal costs in­curred by a com­mis­sion are dis­may­ing.”

Gomery who passed away last year at the age of 88 was most no­tably ap­point­ed as com­mis­sion­er of In­quiry in­to the Spon­sor­ship Pro­gram and Ad­ver­tis­ing Ac­tiv­i­ties, in­for­mal­ly known as the Gomery Com­mis­sion, in 2004.

In the Pi­ar­co Air­port In­quiry the Com­mis­sions rec­om­men­da­tions led to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. Equal­ly, in the CLI­CO In­quiry the re­port formed the ba­sis up­on which fur­ther civ­il and crim­i­nal in­quiry was com­menced,” Phelps said.

One of the ar­gu­ments against com­mis­sions of en­quiry is that that can be­come too po­lit­i­cal.

And while Phelps said some is­sues may be po­lit­i­cal in na­ture, the death of the divers should not be­come a po­lit­i­cal tool.

“Very of­ten the is­sue is po­lit­i­cal. Pi­ar­co was a UNC con­struc­tion project. Las Al­turas was a PNM con­struc­tion project. Cli­co in­volved ex­pen­di­ture ap­proved by one par­ty and the in­quiry was set up by the po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­sary. But in the case of the deaths of these divers it is dif­fi­cult to see any po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal that can be ex­ploit­ed,” Phelps said.

“This is not an in­quiry in­to a fi­nan­cial event or a de­ci­sion that went to the Board. This is an in­quiry in­to events which have re­sult­ed in death. In a case like that, cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is high­ly de­volved. Be­neath the Board is the man­age­ment, it­self hi­er­ar­chi­cal, and be­neath man­age­ment there is or­di­nar­i­ly a fur­ther, in­tri­cate de­vo­lu­tion of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. In a cor­po­rate gov­er­nance case you can draw lines of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. In cas­es like this, where the im­pli­ca­tion is neg­li­gence or worse, the prin­ci­ples are dif­fer­ent. I think that the like­li­hood of any cul­pa­bil­i­ty emerg­ing be­tween the Board and what took place is ex­treme­ly low. Las Al­turas is a good and re­cent ex­am­ple. In that in­quiry no po­lit­i­cal head­way could be made be­cause is was not legal­ly vi­able to at­tribute con­struc­tion de­ci­sions to the Board or Min­is­ter. So the po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties be­came ir­rel­e­vant. The same will ap­ply in this case, there should be no room for par­ti­san pol­i­tics. The fo­cus should be on how these com­plete­ly un­ac­cept­able deaths oc­curred and how the coun­try can en­sure that noth­ing like this hap­pens again,” he said.

The Cab­i­net has se­lect­ed for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj SC as lead coun­sel for the com­mis­sion of en­quiry (CoE) in­to the trag­ic deaths of four divers.

Phelps was asked if he felt Ma­haraj’s ap­point­ment would politi­cise the com­mis­sion of en­quiry.

“No. Be­fore and af­ter serv­ing as AG he was an ex­pe­ri­enced pub­lic and con­sti­tu­tion­al lawyer of re­gion­al re­pute. It is in the lat­ter ca­pac­i­ty that he has been re­tained and that should on­ly im­prove con­fi­dence in the find­ings of the com­mis­sion,” he said.

The com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the death of the divers will con­sist of for­mer head of Ja­maica’s Ap­peal Court Jus­tice Ce­cil Den­nis Mor­ri­son QC (chair­man) and lo­cal sub sea spe­cial­ist Gre­go­ry Wil­son, while Cab­i­net search­es for a third mem­ber in the form of an in­ves­ti­ga­tor with in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence in oil and gas in­dus­try in­ves­ti­ga­tions.