Summons for former EFCL chairman

The JSC intends to issue a summons, based on an order of the Parliament, compelling former chairman of the Education Facilities Company Ltd (EFCL) Arnold Piggott to attend the next hearing of the committee on the company. Piggott was invited to yesterday’s hearing but did not attend based on legal advice, he claimed in a letter sent to JSC secretary Brian Caesar on Saturday.

JSC chairman David Small yesterday told the hearing at the Parliament in Port of Spain, that the former chairman and another person were invited but did not attend. Piggott’s refusal to attend, Small said, was published in a daily newspaper yesterday, even before the committee was informed and even before the meeting convened.

In a letter quoted in the newspaper report, Piggott said, “In the event that I may have been ordinarily favourably disposed to accept an invitation, circumstances, including certain statements in varying quarters, subsequent post-departure developments from EFCL and associated publications would also have caused me to decline.”

Small said the committee was, “disappointed in the way the communication that Piggott was not going to attend ended up in the press before we saw it. The committee is concerned that what we saw is not something we would like to see again.” The committee, Small said, tries to be courteous and respectful and does not communicate its intentions in public. “That is not how we do business.”

The committee discussed the matter, he said, and intends to give another opportunity to those who could not attend yesterday, to do so at another meeting to give their version of events that were presented to the JSC.

The summons for Piggott to attend the next hearing, Small said, is based on Standing Order 102, Section 13, which, “may require by order that a summons be issued to any person to attend before that committee, to be examined and give evidence, and to produce papers and records in that person’s possession.”

The summons, he said, will be signed by the Clerk of the House of Representatives on behalf of the Parliament and be served by the Marshal of the Parliament under the President’s direction, at least seven days before evidence is required. The committee would have to resort to this measure, he said, to enable people who may not want to attend for various reasons.

In Piggott’s case, Small said, there is a document before the committee on which it would like to hear his oral evidence before coming to its conclusion.