Richard Lord

Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to act swift­ly to save the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor. The in­quiry was sched­uled to re­sume this morn­ing at the Win­sure Build­ing, Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain, but this was now un­like­ly as the com­mis­sion was said to be il­le­gal. This, as the Gov­ern­ment failed to pub­lish the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in the Gazette. Com­mis­sion chair­man John Uff is ex­pect­ed to speak about the de­vel­op­ment at a news con­fer­ence this morn­ing. Row­ley said it was now nec­es­sary for the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly ta­ble a Val­i­da­tion Bill in Par­lia­ment, seek­ing to le­galise the work of the com­mis­sion.

Row­ley said the fail­ure to pub­lish the com­mis­sion in the Gazette was "shock­ing and very se­ri­ous, but not fa­tal." He said he was cer­tain the Gov­ern­ment was "a re­spon­si­ble one" and he was con­fi­dent it would "take the nec­es­sary ac­tion to en­sure that the mat­ter was reme­died quick­ly." Row­ley not­ed that this type of over­sight had hap­pened in many Com­mon­wealth coun­tries from time to time, but it was now im­por­tant that the mis­take be cor­rect­ed as soon as pos­si­ble. He said mil­lions of tax­pay­ers dol­lars had al­ready been spent on the in­quiry and the work should not go in vain. Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment should seek to have the mat­ter de­bat­ed and ap­proved in Par­lia­ment, as ear­ly as to­day–Bud­get Day–and in the Sen­ate at the ear­li­est date af­ter that.

"The mat­ter should be brought to the Par­lia­ment to­mor­row and de­bat­ed for a cou­ple of hours af­ter the 2010 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter and passed and tak­en to the Sen­ate as ear­ly as pos­si­ble and al­so passed, so the work of the com­mis­sion can con­tin­ue," he added. Row­ley said if the is­sue was not rec­ti­fied, a le­gal chal­lenges can be made to the com­mis­sion and oth­ers, in­clud­ing re­porters. And Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day is ques­tion­ing whether the fail­ure to pub­lish the in­quiry in the Gazette was a de­lib­er­ate act on the part of the Gov­ern­ment.

"Was it de­lib­er­ate or an ac­ci­dent?" he asked yes­ter­day. "I ask that be­cause the Gov­ern­ment did not want the in­quiry ini­tial­ly. When they were forced to set up the in­quiry, I said noth­ing will come out of it and it seems as though I am go­ing to be right." Asked if the Op­po­si­tion would sup­port leg­is­la­tion to val­i­date the work of the com­mis­sion, Pan­day said he had to wait and see what the bill con­tained be­fore sup­port­ing or not sup­port­ing it. Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Colm Im­bert was said to be re­view­ing the 2009/2010 na­tion­al bud­get when at­tempts were made to reach him for com­ment yes­ter­day.