Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie says he is hap­py that the way is now clear for the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor to re­sume. Je­re­mie's com­ment came in a brief in­ter­view fol­low­ing yes­ter­day agree­ment in court to lift the stay, which ef­fec­tive­ly blocked the com­mis­sion from pro­ceed­ing.

Asked for his ini­tial re­sponse to the de­vel­op­ments, Je­re­mie said, "I re­al­ly have no com­ment to make." Asked if the peo­ple of T&T should feel hap­py about the agree­ment, Je­re­mie said, "I am hap­py." Told that many cit­i­zens and politi­cians had been say­ing that the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry was a waste of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey, Je­re­mie said he was not in of­fice at the start of the probe, but hoped that it meets its ob­jec­tives. Asked if jus­tice was be­ing served as a re­sult of the amend­ed court ac­tion, Je­re­mie stressed: "I am just do­ing my job, that's all that I can do." There was a broad smile on Je­re­mie's face when asked if he felt he had done his job ef­fec­tive­ly to en­sure the hear­ings of the in­quiry re­sumed. Je­re­mie said the PNM Gov­ern­ment "has a proud record when it comes to trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty." But he in­sist­ed that there was a sting in the tail. "Hav­ing re­moved the stay (with the mat­ter still in court) what that means is that the re­port it­self is now un­der threat."

He said un­der the new pro­vi­sion for a 28-day no­tice to be giv­en to Ude­cott, Row­ley said, "It is clear they will head for the court and take is­sue with the pub­lish­ing of the re­port." He pre­dict­ed that the Ude­cott Board would sub­se­quent­ly file mo­tions and ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil. "What we are look­ing at here is a se­ries of le­gal, fan­cy foot­work paid for by tax­pay­ers and they will be us­ing their po­si­tions on the Board to do that. The thing is still scan­dalous." Row­ley said his ob­jec­tions to the way the mat­ter was be­ing han­dled re­mained the same. I don't think we should be bar­gain­ing with Ude­cott." He said the peo­ple of T&T would like the com­mis­sion to be al­lowed to be com­plet­ed with the sub­mis­sion of a re­port to the Pres­i­dent. Row­ley said if there were in­di­vid­u­als in Ude­cott who were in jeop­ardy, they were free to take le­gal ac­tion in their own ca­pac­i­ties.

He said those in­di­vid­u­als should not al­low their fears and trep­i­da­tion to su­percede the rights of the com­pa­ny's share­hold­ers - the peo­ple of T&T. He said based on all that Ude­cott had done to date, Gov­ern­ment should re­move the Board. "There are peo­ple on Ude­cott's Board who feel in per­son­al jeop­ardy (and) threat­ened by the ev­i­dence that was ex­posed (in the in­quiry) and they as a Board are in a po­si­tion to give in­struc­tions to lawyers to ob­struct the com­mis­sion." Row­ley stressed: "It's crys­tal clear what they in­tend to do, so re­move the board."