UDeCOTT not squandering money on legal fees: Annisette

Independent Senator Michael Annisette has denounced statements suggesting that The Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) is squandering and abusing state funds in legal proceedings aimed at halting the Uff commission.

Annisette, who is a UDeCOTT board member told local Parliament, "Do not misrepresent the facts. Do not make the public believe that we are misusing public money" explaining that the state corporation is following the law.

Annisette made the comment in his contribution to the debate on government's validation bill that's aimed at legitimizing the work of the commission of inquiry into UDeCOTT and the construction sector.

Annisette was outraged that his colleague, Independent Senator Dana Seetahal asked in crosstalk about who would be be pay the UDeCOTT's expenses for the judicial review case.

"That is not the issue," he said. "UDeCOTT has been set up under the Companies Ordinance, all right, and therefore in that context we fall under the rules and regulations governing that," he said.

He said under such circumstances the UDeCOTT board must pay legal costs because if anyone is going to lay charges against board members "the company that has to pay the legal fees."

He wondered why everyone but UDeCOTT seems to have rights. "How can other people have rights and when you exercise a right, it is wrong, it is immoral, it is unethical and you should resign...I mean it is so ludicrous, it is so unfair," he told the Senate.