The Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (Udecott) is pain to all of us, according to Independent Senator Helen Drayton.

With the cost of the Brian Lara Cricket Stadium in Tarouba standing close to a billion dollars, Drayton said cost overruns incurred on the project, which Udecott was managing, would have been prevented through a more effective dissemination of information related to the administration of the project. “We certainly have fundamental problems with inefficiency. We have problems with management, you know, and we see that on a daily basis. As a matter of fact I will be frank, we probably would not be in the position that we are in today with respect to Udecott, which is pain to all of us. We would not be in the position in terms of Tarouba,” she said.

Drayton was contributing to the debate on a motion from Opposition Senator Wade Mark to give effect to proposals for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in yesterday’s sitting of the Senate. “The long and short of it is that I believe that there is a need for an improvement in the way we disseminate information and when you consider that the Government has two stations that absorb the taxpayers money, there are ways which one can utilise such media to disseminate information in a non-partisan non political way, that is creative, that attracts viewership and that consequently attracts viewership and consequently attracts advertising dollars,” she said. Drayton emphasised that better could be done to produce information from the Government.