To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

It's rare, if not un­prece­dent­ed, for a com­mis­sion of en­quiry to have trav­elled the com­pli­cat­ed route that the Uff Com­mis­sion has, in con­duct­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tions and com­pil­ing ref­er­ences for its re­port on the Trinidad and To­ba­go con­struc­tion in­dus­try. The com­mis­sion was as­sem­bled in 2008 with a man­date to in­ves­ti­gate is­sues aris­ing from the boom in lo­cal con­struc­tion over the last ten years, with an em­pha­sis on re­view­ing the meth­ods be­ing used to ini­ti­ate large-scale con­struc­tion con­tracts, the qual­i­ty of de­liv­ery, and the trans­paren­cy of the process­es in use in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Along the way to the com­mis­sion's first sit­tings, oth­er mat­ters were tacked on to the in­quiry process, most no­tably the re­view of the Cleaver Heights con­tract and de­liv­ery process.

Af­ter the in­quiry be­gan and hun­dreds of hours of tes­ti­mo­ny tak­en, a star­tling er­ror ap­peared to be on the verge of de­rail­ing the en­tire in­ves­tiga­tive process, when it was re­vealed that the con­ven­ing of the Uff Com­mis­sion had not been pub­lished in the Gazette, as re­quired by law. On Fri­day, Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er cleared the fi­nal hur­dle stand­ing be­tween com­mis­sion leader John Uff's de­liv­ery of the fi­nal re­port of the in­quiry in­to the con­struc­tion sec­tor when she de­ci­sive­ly re­spond­ed to Ude­cott at­tor­ney, De­vesh Ma­haraj's, re­quest that the re­port be blocked. "You have not shown me any good rea­sons why I should do so," Dean-Ar­mor­er said.

It is un­like­ly that Ude­cott will halt its ef­forts to neuter the Uff Com­mis­sion's work at this point. The state com­pa­ny has pro­ceed­ed with tac­tics to stymie the com­mis­sion's work–and now its re­port–de­spite the stat­ed de­sire of its prin­ci­pals, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, that the com­mis­sion's work should be com­plet­ed and prop­er­ly cir­cu­lat­ed to the pub­lic. Pub­lic cir­cu­la­tion of this re­port would mark a stark de­par­ture from the ex­ist­ing modus operan­di for such rev­e­la­tions, which tends to be ar­tic­u­lat­ed in re­spons­es to ques­tions put to the Gov­ern­ment by the Op­po­si­tion or in­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors dur­ing sit­tings in Par­lia­ment. Gov­ern­ment and its Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Colm Im­bert, are quick to dis­sem­ble and de­ny ac­cu­sa­tions of less than ex­em­plary process and pro­ce­dure in the award, re­view and ap­proval of large gov­ern­ment con­tracts and is­sues raised re­gard­ing its ten­der­ing process­es.

In a let­ter to this news­pa­per, in re­sponse to our Tues­day ed­i­to­r­i­al, Min­is­ter Im­bert sought to por­tray our sen­si­ble sug­ges­tion that lo­cal pro­fes­sion­als in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try should be more ful­ly-en­gaged in the process of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment as some kind of pro­fes­sion­al ba­by-sit­ting. In oth­er de­vel­op­ing coun­tries and in na­tions which have suc­cess­ful­ly raised their in­ter­nal ca­pac­i­ties for pro­duc­tion, one price that for­eign firms op­er­at­ing with­in the coun­try must pay is a re­quire­ment for knowl­edge trans­fer. Clear­ly, there is a need for re­view and re­form of pro­cure­ment sys­tems be­ing em­ployed by the Gov­ern­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly through its pri­ma­ry agency of con­struc­tion, Ude­cott, and a re­think­ing of our en­tire strat­e­gy of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment through con­struc­tion.

The pub­lic is en­ti­tled to ex­pect, par­tic­u­lar­ly from a com­mis­sion of en­quiry which has been sub­ject to pre­vi­ous­ly un­heard of lev­els of scruti­ny, a doc­u­ment that is pub­lished for pub­lic view­ing in a time­ly man­ner. Cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go are al­so en­ti­tled to ex­pect the Gov­ern­ment to re­spond de­ci­sive­ly and vis­i­bly to the rec­om­men­da­tions and find­ings of the Uff Com­mis­sion, and to demon­strate a com­mit­ment to re­al change in the con­struc­tion sec­tor by ac­tive­ly im­ple­ment­ing its sug­ges­tions. In the face of the shame­less bur­ial of pre­vi­ous re­ports ten­dered by pri­or com­mis­sions and the near­ly per­fect record of the Gov­ern­ment in ig­nor­ing the sug­ges­tions of de­tailed re­ports, such as the Gaffoor Re­port In­to The Health Sec­tor, this might qual­i­fy as un­war­rant­ed op­ti­mism, but de­vel­op­ment of one of the largest sources of em­ploy­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serves our best and bright­est hopes.