Dr James Armstrong, the president of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry (JCC), is urging the Government to "let good sense prevail" and not take the Invaders Bay Development Project to the country's highest appellate court.
He said legal fees for the matter being heard at the Privy Council are expected to cost millions of dollars and would be a further unnecessary financial burden on taxpayers.
Two weeks ago, Appeal Court Justices Nolan Bureaux, Gregory Smith and Peter Rajkumar granted leave to the State to challenge two previous court rulings which found that the Ministry of Planning and Development's decision to not make public any legal opinions it received relative to the award of the project was null, void and of no effect.
Armstrong said last week they were disappointed that the matter was going to the Privy Council "because as you are aware the JCC won the matter on two occasions and the last occasion being the Appeal Court and it is something that we expected the present Government would have accepted and leave it as a settled court matter, but they have decided to go to the Privy Council and we are very concerned by that, we are disappointed by that because clearly going to the Privy Council is going to require significant amounts of resources which we have already extended."
He said there are financial constraints as far as the JCC is concerned. "It is difficult to really match the State in terms of the financial outlay that would be required to contest this further. So since we are really confident that the case was decided correctly, although it was a split decision (by the Appeal Court), we were really hoping that good sense would prevail and that the matter would have been closed, so that is where we are at right now."
The JCC was represented by Senior Counsel Gilbert Peterson, while Russell Martineau, SC, appeared for the State.
Armstrong said paying for a senior counsel to represent the JCC in London would be exorbitant.
"It (the matter going to the Privy Council) is not something that we expected really but I don't know that there is any new substantive material or issues. It is the same case really and what we were contesting then and what the then opposition (now the PNM Government) was supporting is no different today really, so we don't quite understand why they are going to appeal it further.
Armstrong said the JCC would adopt a wait-and-see approach to the matter.
"As you are aware with going to the Privy Council there are certain conditions that the Appeal Court here would have set out that the State would have to meet. So I don't know whether they would meet all those requirements so it is something that we would have to wait and see whether it actually gets to the Privy Council and we are hoping that good sense would prevail," Armstrong said.
Maharaj: JCC can get legal help
Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj who has assisted several people in the region in having their appeals heard before the Privy Council said he was certain the JCC would be able to get legal representation in the matter at minimal cost.
"I know of institutions and law firms in the United Kingdom which would assist litigants in Trinidad and Tobago in a matter like what the JCC has, in having the matter done before the Privy Council. And the JCC would have to pay minimal costs in that way," Maharaj said.
There is no secrecy, it's misinformation–Tewarie
Former Planning minister under the People's Partnership administration Dr Bhoe Tewarie said a lot of misinformation was being spread about the billion-dollar Invaders Bay project.
In 2014 Tewarie had said the land was valued $1.2 billion. The value of the land has now risen to over $1.5 billion.
"There was no issue of disclosure in the project. There was no issue of us trying to hide anything and that is the misinformation that is being spread that we were trying to hide something," Tewarie said last week
"What we were contesting was whether the advice of an attorney to his or her client, which is generally regarded as privileged information, is subject to the jurisdiction of the Freedom of Information Act, or whether since it is privileged exchange of information between attorney and client, it is exempt from the act," Tewarie said.
Tewarie said the entire case hinges on whether a matter of "attorney-client privilege" trumps "what the JCC has labelled a "matter of grave public concern".
"The citizen, seeking to understand and appreciate this, needs to ask himself or herself if every legal advice given to Government were to become public information, whether Government will be able to function," Tewarie said.
Tewarie said the decision on this matter had serious implications.
"The matter of the information requested by the JCC involved giving information on the legal advice that was given from the senior counsel to the Ministry of Planning through the Attorney General's Office," he said.
"As a minister I had no problem with making the information available freely to the public. I had no problem with that but the legal advice coming from the Attorney General's Office and the legal position of the attorneys representing the Ministry of Planning was that the privileged information of a lawyer to his client should not be a matter for public disclosure by the Government because it would set a precedent for all other matters in which legal advice was sought by the Government and that would open the door too wide on the issue of freedom of information involving government business in which legal advice was sought," he said.
Tewarie said he went ahead with the legal advice he was given. "It is not about secrecy and hiding anything," Tewarie said.
The advice given to former attorney general Anand Ramlogan was that the Ministry of Planning did not comply with the Central Tenders Board (CTB) Act when it tendered and selected the developers for the billion-dollar Inva?ders Bay Development project.
The advice was provided by legal adviser to the attorney general, Joan R Furlonge, on February 13, 2012.
Furlonge questioned the procedure used by the Ministry of Planning in procuring bids for the billion-dollar project.
A week later, Ramlogan received another opinion from Senior Counsel Fenton Ramsahoye, stating the planning minister acted within the law.
The investors
Tewarie said when he was still planning minister all the legal arrangements were concluded with the two private sector investors for land between them.
The two investors were Derek Chin's Dachin Company Ltd and Jerry Joseph's Invaders Bay Marina Group (IBMG).
Dachin Company Ltd was picked for a ten-acre development, while IBMG was selected for the development of 13 acres of the billion-dollar land development deal.
The People's Partnership Cabinet decided to lease Dachin 10.2 acres for a commercial/residential complex, a boutique hotel, a cultural focus area and three main event entertainment areas comprising a museum, bowling alley and movie theatres.
IBMG was to be leased 13 acres for a hotel, commercial office complex, cruise ship complex, gas station, residential development, light industrial development, and a marina.
"The investment was coming from the private sector and the State during the entire period had made no expenditure except for the services of PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a due diligence on all of the parties who had bid for the project and for negotiations with the two investors that they recommended and which Cabinet approved," Tewarie said.
"There were modest fees also for one legal firm. There was no frivolous expenditure involved in this project and there was no expenditure on physical work at the Invaders Bay property," he said.