NADALEEN SINGH

Ar­chi­tects are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to adapt "a slow­er and bal­anced ap­proach" to­wards con­struc­tion in the coun­try. The call was made by Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go In­sti­tute of Ar­chi­tects (TTIA) Gary Tur­ton. He was speak­ing at a sem­i­nar to com­mem­o­rate World Day of Ar­chi­tects 2009 at the Build­ing and In­te­ri­ors Trade Show (BITS) at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya, Tu­na­puna, on Sat­ur­day. Tur­ton said the TTIA and oth­ers in the in­dus­try had told the Gov­ern­ment about its ac­cel­er­at­ed plan to con­struct build­ings in T&T through the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil. He said the mem­bers had rec­om­mend­ed a slow­er and bal­anced ap­proach to con­struct­ing build­ings which would have al­lowed lo­cal con­sul­tants and con­trac­tors to "gear up" to meet the de­vel­op­men­tal goals of the coun­try. Tur­ton said a slow­er ap­proach to con­struc­tion would have al­lowed for in­clu­sion of mem­bers of the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor. He al­so said the Ude­cott in­quiry must be al­lowed to con­tin­ue. "I be­lieve the pub­lic needs to be com­plete­ly sat­is­fied that there's been no wrong­do­ing by cer­tain state agen­cies," he said. "If there has been, the per­pe­tra­tors should be pe­nalised. "We must re­mem­ber that a state en­ter­prise such as Ude­cott was formed to con­struct build­ings in T&T for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of T&T."

Tur­ton said TTIA sup­port­ed the con­clu­sion of the Uff com­mis­sion, be­cause it was a waste of pub­lic funds. "For us, we con­tin­ue to lob­by for change," he said. "We sup­port the con­clu­sion of the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, in that, while there is a cost to the pub­lic, it would have been a waste of pub­lic mon­ey, if a full con­clu­sion is not made." Prof John Uff, chair­man of the com­mis­sion, de­clared, on Sep­tem­ber 7, that the sit­tings of the com­mis­sion had to be stalled, be­cause the com­mis­sion was not gazetted. "It does not fol­low that the pro­ceed­ings which have tak­en place over eight weeks have been�"il­le­gal" or of no ef­fect," Uff had said. Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er or­dered, on Oc­to­ber 2, that the Uff Com­mis­sion should not hold fur­ther hear­ings un­til Feb­ru­ary, when Ude­cott's ju­di­cial re­view case against the com­mis­sion was sched­uled to be held. Re­ports on Oc­to­ber 6, in­di­cat­ed that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie had re­quest­ed that Ude­cott's at­tor­neys should with­draw the court or­der, and on Fri­day, Dean-Ar­mor­er re­voked an or­der which stalled the in­quiry in­to the con­struc­tion sec­tor, mak­ing the way clear for the pro­ceed­ings to con­tin­ue.

Re­sponse:

Pres­i­dent of the Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion Mikey Joseph said T&T had wast­ed too much time when it came to the sit­tings of the Uff en­quiry, and the pro­ceed­ings should con­tin­ue. He said if an ex­ec­u­tive had com­mit­ted acts in con­tra­ven­tion of the law, he should be treat­ed like the crim­i­nals who com­mit­ted mur­der. "Trans­paren­cy or not, what we want is ac­tion to be tak­en on those who would have com­mit­ted any acts in con­tra­ven­tion of the law, us­ing the ex­cuse that they broke the law be­cause they were act­ing on be­half of the State," Joseph said.