Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

There was sup­port across the floor in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, for a mo­tion aimed at re­view­ing the Com­mis­sions of En­quiry Act and the pub­lic in­quiry process. In mov­ing the mo­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira SC con­tend­ed that re­form was need­ed to im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness and ac­count­abil­i­ty of en­quiries.

“There are many as­pects to pub­lic en­quiries, fun­da­men­tal­ly they are a tool for so­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion, to im­prove our un­der­stand­ing of com­plex is­sues and when done prop­er­ly pub­lic in­quiries have the pow­er to change at­ti­tudes, poli­cies and prac­tice.

“There are those for whom com­mis­sions of en­quiries are mere­ly a so­phis­ti­cat­ed rues to take pres­sure off gov­ern­ment or politi­cians, oth­ers see com­mis­sions of en­quiries as win­dow dress­ing, just mak­ing as if some­thing is be­ing done,” he said.

Vieira not­ed that pre­vi­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tions have cost tax­pay­ers sig­nif­i­cant­ly while not seem­ing­ly yield­ing the de­sired out­comes.

“Many grum­ble that the rec­om­men­da­tions are nev­er im­ple­ment­ed and as a com­mon com­plaint, they take too long, they cost too much and they of­ten fail to achieve what they were in­tend­ed to do, lots of promise lit­tle de­liv­ery.”

The In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor al­so ref­er­enced pre­vi­ous com­mis­sions of en­quiries, in­clud­ing the lat­est in­to the Paria div­ing tragedy.

“Giv­en that this mo­tion comes in the wake of the Paria en­quiry whose 380 page re­port was laid in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day 10 Jan­u­ary 2024 this seems an op­por­tune time to con­sid­er the val­ue of en­quiries and whether they can be im­proved. The Paria en­quiry pro­duced 52 rec­om­men­da­tions whether any will be im­ple­ment­ed or en­forced or will fall on deaf ears time will tell,” he added.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, al­so sup­port­ed the call to amend the leg­is­la­tion which, ac­cord­ing to him, was last ad­just­ed in 1976.

“Our Com­mis­sions of En­quiries Act starts in 1892 so clear­ly we must amend it and we must bring it in­to the 20th cen­tu­ry, we have to deal with ex­or­bi­tant costs. It must come with a view of pro­duc­ing re­sults that the pub­lic will ac­cept at the end of the day. We have to ac­cept that the length of time which com­mis­sions of en­quiry en­gage in and the length of time be­yond the re­port when lit­tle may be done to at­tend to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions, that too must be ad­dressed,” Ar­mour said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor, Wade Mark de­scribed the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion as a fail­ure and called for al­ter­na­tive process­es such as the in­tro­duc­tion of a spe­cial coun­cil or spe­cial pros­e­cu­tors.