Fran­cis Joseph

?Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards has ex­tend­ed the life of the com­mis­sion­ers in­ves­ti­gat­ing the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor and has asked for the long-await­ed re­port to be de­liv­ered to him by Feb­ru­ary 28, next year. The new in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment were made on No­vem­ber 17 by Richards and de­liv­ered to the com­mis­sion­ers – Pro­fes­sor John Uff, chair­man, Desmond Thorn­hill and Ken­neth Sir­ju. The new ap­point­ments were made in time for the De­cem­ber 7 re­sump­tion of pub­lic hear­ings at the Win­sure Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, in which fur­ther tes­ti­mo­ny would be take from new wit­ness­es. Sev­er­al days have been put aside for the fi­nal phase of the in­quiry, be­fore the com­mis­sion­ers sit down and write their re­port for the Pres­i­dent.

The in­quiry re­sumes against the back­drop of the death of con­trac­tor, Hafeez Kara­math, who was one of the sub­jects of the in­quiry, es­pe­cial­ly over the con­struc­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um at Tarou­ba. Dur­ing the last stage of the in­quiry, one of the com­mis­sion­ers, Is­rael Khan SC, re­signed on Au­gust 14 as a mem­ber, al­though his name is still on the com­mis­sion's web­site. The in­quiry was halt­ed in Sep­tem­ber af­ter it was dis­cov­ered the ap­point­ment of the com­mis­sion was not pub­lished in the Gazette, pur­suant to Sec­tion 15 of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry Act. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ap­point­ed for­mer Court of Ap­peal judge, An­tho­ny Lucky, to in­quire what went wrong and why the mat­ter was not pub­lished in the Gazette.

Lucky sub­mit­ted a tem­po­rary re­port to Je­re­mie, but will hand in his fi­nal re­port this week when he re­turns from abroad. The in­quiry al­so was sub­ject­ed to a stay from the High Court af­ter the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) filed for ju­di­cial re­view on the ground that the com­mis­sion was bi­ased to­wards the State com­pa­ny. Al­though both sides agreed to lift the stay on the hear­ing of the com­mis­sion, they will re­turn to the cour­t­house next month to deal with the sub­stan­tive is­sues in the ju­di­cial re­view case. The com­mis­sion­ers were first ap­point­ed by Richards on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2008, with a man­date to pro­duce the re­port to the Pres­i­dent in Sep­tem­ber 2009. The Pres­i­dent ex­tend­ed the life of the com­mis­sion af­ter it be­came im­pos­si­ble for the com­mis­sion­ers to com­plete the job with­in the spec­i­fied pe­ri­od.

THE PROBE

1. The pro­cure­ment prac­tices in the pub­lic con­struc­tion sec­tor;

2. The ef­fect of the use of pro­vi­sion­al sums, prime cost sums, nom­i­nat­ed sup­pli­ers and nom­i­nat­ed con­trac­tors in con­struc­tion con­tracts in the pub­lic sec­tor;

3. The ef­fect of in­com­plete de­signs, de­sign changes, vari­a­tions, poor su­per­vi­sion and poor man­age­ment on the cost and de­liv­ery of con­struc­tion projects in the pub­lic sec­tor;

4. The per­for­mance of lo­cal and for­eign con­trac­tors and con­sul­tants on pub­lic sec­tor projects;

5. The ef­fec­tive­ness of the turnkey ap­proach, al­so called the de­sign-build ap­proach for the de­liv­ery of pub­lic sec­tor con­struc­tion projects as com­pared to the tra­di­tion­al de­sign and ten­der ap­proach;

6. The rea­sons for and the ef­fect of cost over­runs, de­lays and de­fec­tive work­man­ship in pub­lic sec­tor con­struc­tion projects;

7. The ex­is­tence of price goug­ing and prof­i­teer­ing in the pub­lic con­struc­tion sec­tor;

8. The pro­cure­ment prac­tices and meth­ods of op­er­a­tion of Ude­cott;

9. To make�rec­om­men­da­tions and ob­ser­va­tions aris­ing out of its de­lib­er­a­tions as may be deemed ap­pro­pri­ate, to en­sure that

10. With re­spect to pub­lic sec­tor con­struc­tion projects and the pro­cure­ment prac­tices and meth­ods of op­er­a­tion of Ude­cott, tax­pay­ers get val­ue for mon­ey;

11. The de­liv­ery of projects and the high­est stan­dard of work­man­ship are achieved and main­tained;

12. There is free and fair com­pe­ti­tion, full par­tic­i­pa­tion and ac­cess for all cit­i­zens in the pub­lic pro­cure­ment process; and,

13. In­tegri­ty and trans­paren­cy in the pub­lic pro­cure­ment prac­tice are as­sured.