An exchange of letters between Dr Keith Rowley and UDeCOTT Chairman Calder Hart indicates that Rowley had serious concerns about the organization's tendering process and blamed Hart for manipulating the tendering process for the $100 million Customs and Excise Building under construction in Port of Spain.Rowley made the accusation in a letter dated August 5, 2003, which he presented in court documents in his lawsuit against the Integrity Commission.
He was minister of Planning and Development when he wrote the letter. Rowley’s correspondence to Hart said an examination of the evaluation of awards by his ministry "confirms that the process and procedures being pursued by UDeCOTT are faulty and there is clear evidence that the tender process has been, or is being manipulated to the detriment of the company (UDeCOTT) and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago".
Rowley noted that, "The documentation available to me demonstrates that the standards which were demanded have not been met and, therefore, the process must be terminated at once," and offered guidelines for UDeCOTT to follow.
Read Rowley’s letter to Hart
Hart replied to the minister in a letter dated August 27, 2003 admitting that the tendering process was flawed.
"The mistake, as I have identified for everyone, was in my attempt to correct the system on the run, so to speak, as opposed to simply aborting the tender when the process was discovered to be flawed and less than the full and open tender that had been decided upon at the Inter-ministerial Committee which you chaired," Hart wrote.
Hart noted that since December 2002, he had informed Rowley that the tender process was faulty, because 60 per cent of the project had already been allocated to nominated subcontractors.
"Hardly the kind of open, equitable and transparent process that we were hoping for," Hart wrote. But he insisted that there was no endemic problem with the process.
Read Hart’s letter to Rowley
The Feud with Hart erupted into a full-blown "wajang" last month that led to Rowley's dismissal from the Cabinet. Prime Minister Manning pointed out that his decision to fire the minister had nothing to do with UDeCOTT and everything to with Rowley's behaviour, which he said was inappropriate for a government minister.
But the consensus is that it had to do with Rowley's questioning of plans to build a 60-room hotel on the site of the old Princess Building without prior Cabinet approval. Rowley has said that the Cabinet had not approved the hotel project and some ministers have since corroborated Rowley's story.
Rowley has claimed that the hotel project Manning without Cabinet approval violated the constitution.
But Manning produced a letter last week from Hart to former Culture Minister Joan Yuille-Williams more than a year ago that identified the hotel. But Manning himself appears to have doubts about whether there was Cabinet approval.
"I have to see the Cabinet Note and I have to see if it said a 60-room hotel. It may or may not have said that, but it was always part of our deliberations," he told reporters.
Read Tony Fraser's column: Clarification on 60-room hotel needed
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