Former cabinet minister Keith Rowley has a lot riding on the Uff inquiry into UDeCOTT and the construction sector.And on Sunday he called on the Manning administration to prevent UDeCOTT from halting the probe and removing all documents it submitted to the commission from the official records and from the inquiry's website.
UDeCOTT is also taking legal action to prevent the commissioners from writing an interim report, as directed by the president, using evidence presented during public hearings. The commission suspended hearings earlier this month because of the failure of the government to gazette the commission.
Read the story: UDeCOTT moves to end Uff probe, stop report
Rowley said this "latest outrage" by UDeCOTT must stop. And he is demanding that the administration take action to end UDeCOTT's legal attemmpt to undermine and derail the commission. If it fails to do so, he said, it would mean that the cabinet is part of a conspiracy to end the hearings.
Rowley told the Trinidad Express, "Lawyers don't instruct themselves. They act on the instructions of their clients who pay them. To the extent that UDeCOTT lawyers are now seen to be acting at variance with the wishes of the population and in direct defiance of the President and the Cabinet, they are doing so on the instructions of UDeCOTT's managers, who appear to be bent on protecting themselves from scrutiny."
Rowley charged that one principal issue in the inquiry has been the role of the minister in directing a State enterprise in contravention of the stated public policy.
He added that Attorney General John Jeremie gave an assurance in Parliament that the government would introduce the relevant validation bill to salvage the inquiry and he expects his office "keep its word to the Parliament".
Rowley asked, "If the Cabinet has taken a position that the Commission of Enquiry should not be derailed, should not the Cabinet or the Minister with portfolio responsibility, instruct UDeCOTT to cease and desist from this very expensive exercise?"
He suggested that the outcome of "this court proceeding is to do the opposite of what the Government says it wants to achieve."
Rowley wants to know how a State enterprise can "go off on its own and do what it pleases with the public assets and the public monies" and why the Government and the minister with portfolio responsibility for UDeCOTT is "impotent in dealing with this enterprise."
Rowley suggested that UDeCOTT has become a rogue State enterprise that feels it is "so strong, so bold that they can publicly contradict the Government, confront the President, confront the Parliament, embarrass the Attorney General, it feels so omnipotent and this is the key to the whole thing. And this did not start with the Commission of Enquiry," Rowley said.
"As long as officials of UDeCOTT continue to see and hear senior members of the Cabinet defending their alleged bid-rigging and showering praise on their waste, they will feel emboldened to carry out this outrage at great expense to the very taxpayers who want the Enquiry to proceed, make findings and identify failures in accountability," the former minister added.
He said the Government could solve the problem by firing executive chairman Calder Hart.
"UDeCOTT has been described by me and others as a rogue State enterprise. If there was any doubt about that description, this is proof," Rowley declared, adding that on more than one occasion he had called on the Prime Minister to Hart "and his cronies" from the affairs of the State agency.
He added a political twist to the matter. "I hope the party is looking on and is duly concerned about the detrimental label that is being placed on the party, as a result of the actions and inaction of persons who represent the party at the level of government.
"Because while the Government is temporary, the party ought to be permanent. And any indelible stain put on the party by any action of the Government, would be contrary to the principles of the party and would be there for generations", Rowley concluded.
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