CoE needed into all CoEs

THE EDITOR: With the latest commission of enquiry (CoE) into the Paria tragedy and all the brouhaha, angst and surreal things unfolding, we have to pause and ask ourselves what will become of this?

There have been several CoEs formed over the years to probe and gather facts/truth in cases of alleged improprieties, misconduct and serious criminal behaviour. All the CoEs saw commissioners appointed by the President of the republic on advice from the Cabinet pursuant to the powers under section 2 of the Commissions of Enquiry Act.

Has anyone paused and asked the status of recourse taken after the findings of these enquiries? Have the taxpayers gotten value for money? What has happened after all these CoEs? We may need a commission of enquiry to investigate the outcomes of every commission of enquiry formed.

Let us travel down memory lane and those with good memories could help educate the public on what became of the following, or maybe the police service or the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions could provide some education:

1. Report of the CoE into the oil industry, 1963-1964.

2. Report of the CoE into the operation and delivery of public healthcare services in TT.

3. In 1977 there was a report of the CoE into all aspects of tenure of building land in TT, including the complaints, hardships, problems and other incidents arising from the letting of "building land." This CoE was initiated by the then government.

4. Report of the CoE into the functioning of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (May 31, 2002).

5. The CoE into the construction sector and Udecott was chaired by Prof John Uff, QC. The Uff Commission held its first public hearing on January 12, 2009, and the hearings were anxiously awaited by interested citizens and construction industry stakeholders.

6. The report from the CoE appointed to probe the failure of regional insurance conglomerate Colonial Life Insurance Company (Clico) was handed over to then president Anthony Carmona on June 22, 2016, by secretary of the commission Judith Gonzalez.

In presenting the report, Gonzalez said the findings were “fundamentally deficient” and was starkly shown up by the autocratic style of the management of Clico and the CLF Group generally by its business model, which was found to be seriously flawed, and by the cavalier manner it treated attempts by the Inspector of Financial Institutions to deploy such limited regulatory control tools as were then available and ignored, to a large extent, the recommendations as to management by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the corporate auditors of the CLF Group and of Clico.

On the need to reform the Commission of Enquiry Act, in relation to witness compellability, the report noted that although a commissioner was empowered as a High Court judge to order a witness to appear to give evidence, “failure to comply does not amount to an offence analogous to contempt of court, which can be punished by the judge. Instead, the available sanction for breach of such an order involves prosecution in a magistrates court. The maximum sentence upon conviction is a fine of $2,000, a punishment of practically no deterrent effect.”

It said the commission was denied the benefit of hearing evidence from four key witnesses involved in the management of the CLF Group, “whose evidence would have been highly material to its findings.

7. On September 7, 2016, Prime Minister Rowley received from the President the report of the CoE into the Las Alturas residential towers which were built by way of a contract that was awarded through the HDC, having inherited the project from Udecott. A number of towers were built in Morvant, two of which failed engineeringly and eventually had to be demolished. The CoE completed its work and submitted the report.

8. The report on the CoE appointed to enquire into the events surrounding the attempted coup of July 27, 1990, was handed over to then president Anthony Carmona on March 13, 2014, signed by all the commissioners (Sir David Simmons, Dr Eastlyn McKenzie, Sir Richard Cheltenham, Diana Mahabir-Wyatt and Dr Haffizool Mohammed). Anything happened to the insurrectionists?

The Government of the day should think about setting up a CoE to investigate and probe the state of all the former CoEs.

PHILBERT GERVAIS

via e-mail