Fran­cis Joseph

In his fi­nal sub­mis­sions to the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, for­mer Hous­ing Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, has tak­en of­fence to what he called in­ac­cu­ra­cies com­ing from the present Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Colm Im­bert.

The sub­mis­sions, dat­ed March 9, which are now in the hands of com­mis­sion chair­man, Pro­fes­sor John Uff, in Lon­don, were pre­pared by Row­ley's le­gal team, Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC and Mar­garet Rose. All sub­mis­sions are be­fore Uff and Com­mis­sion­er Desmond Thorn­hill and the re­port in­to the con­struc­tion sec­tor, Ude­cott and the Cleaver Heights hous­ing project, should be in the hands of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards be­fore East­er. Row­ley, MP for Diego Mar­tin West, found that Im­bert was tak­en up with fight­ing legal­ly with Emile Elias, chair­man of NH In­ter­na­tion­al (NHIC). Ac­cord­ing to the sub­mis­sions: "In our fi­nal words to the com­mis­sion, giv­en the con­duct of Min­is­ter Im­bert be­fore this com­mis­sion, we feel con­strained to com­ment on what may be viewed as an abuse of pub­lic re­sources to pur­sue a pri­vate agen­da." Pe­ter­son, in his doc­u­ment, wants the com­mis­sion to re­call the re­luc­tant ad­mis­sion of Im­bert, while un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by Alvin Fitz­patrick SC, coun­sel for NHIC, that the min­is­ter was present­ly in­debt­ed to NHIC in the amount of $17 mil­lion. He said it was a well-pub­li­cised fact that Im­bert was en­gaged in pro­tract­ed lit­i­ga­tion over that and oth­er is­sues.

Pe­ter­son added: "Min­is­ter Im­bert's analy­ses be­fore this com­mis­sion are lit­tered with in­nu­mer­able ad­verse com­ments against cred­i­tor, Emile Elias, the prin­ci­pal of NHIC. "The com­mis­sion is urged to be mind­ful of his well-pub­li­cised pri­vate dif­fi­cul­ties with this con­trac­tor which must cause the in­de­pen­dent-mind­ed ob­serv­er to ask whether his dili­gence is out of a sense of pub­lic du­ty or in fur­ther­ance of his pri­vate agen­da. "The com­mis­sion, in analysing all the in­for­ma­tion flow­ing be­tween the par­ties may not have to look far to recog­nise the pos­si­ble mo­tive for some of Min­is­ter Im­bert's in­ter­ven­tions be­fore it," Pe­ter­son added. In his fi­nal sub­mis­sions, Im­bert blamed Row­ley for al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties pri­or to the is­suance of the in­vi­ta­tion for ex­pres­sion of in­ter­est. But Pe­ter­son point­ed out Row­ley was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Hous­ing in No­vem­ber 2003. He said any ques­tion aris­ing from the al­leged com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween NHIC and NHA/HDC, with re­spect to the Cleaver Heights Hous­ing project, must be di­rect­ed to those par­ties as the ex­pres­sion of in­ter­est came on Au­gust 14, 2003.

Pe­ter­son stat­ed: "It is clear there­fore that what­ev­er Min­is­ter Im­bert al­leges in re­spect of the gen­e­sis of this project, can­not ap­ply to Dr Row­ley's tenure, since at that time Dr Row­ley was Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, and Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph held the hous­ing port­fo­lio."