An­na-Lisa Paul

The clos­ing date for the Las Al­turas Com­mis­sion of En­quiry has been ex­tend­ed as at­tempts are still be­ing made to se­cure the long-await­ed ev­i­dence of for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), Calder Hart.

Of­fi­cials have con­firmed that the ex­ten­sion was as a re­sult of the long hol­i­day sea­son, cou­pled with the non-sub­mis­sion of Hart's wit­ness state­ment.

Re­veal­ing that they were yet to re­ceive the state­ment which had been promised with­in ten days of a re­quest by his at­tor­ney for ad­di­tion­al doc­u­ments on Feb­ru­ary 24, com­mis­sion of­fi­cials said up to yes­ter­day they were still await­ing word from Hart's at­tor­ney Tecla Dun­can.

The en­quiry was due to of­fi­cial­ly con­clude to­mor­row.

Dur­ing the last hear­ing on Feb­ru­ary 24, com­mis­sion chair­man Mustapha Ibrahim point­ed out the time con­straints they faced and in­struct­ed that Hart's state­ment be sub­mit­ted with­in sev­en days of the re­quest by Dun­can. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­neys and com­mis­sion of­fi­cials were un­able to say if a new clos­ing date had been de­cid­ed up­on.

One of­fi­cial said, "We have one in mind but it is yet to be fi­nal­ized." Dun­can had re­quest­ed cer­tain doc­u­ments be­fore sub­mit­ting Hart's wit­ness state­ment.

Le­gal minds close to the en­quiry said it in­clud­ed some of which they "did not have in hand yet." Pressed to re­veal what doc­u­ments these in­clud­ed, of­fi­cials de­clined to an­swer.

Asked if it was pos­si­ble that the com­mis­sion would sched­ule a sev­enth ev­i­dence hear­ing for this week, in or­der to ac­com­mo­date Hart, of­fi­cials said while this was not on the agen­da, if it was done it would def­i­nite­ly be "short" com­pared to the oth­er ses­sions.

The of­fi­cial went on to ex­plain that the hear­ing would be to al­low Hart to sub­mit his wit­ness state­ment and be cross-ex­am­ined by the at­tor­neys for the var­i­ous par­ties ap­pear­ing be­fore the com­mis­sion.

It is ex­pect­ed that Hart would be grilled by at­tor­neys via video link, as he cur­rent­ly re­sides in Flori­da.

Pri­or to the close of the last ses­sion, Ibrahim had al­so in­struct­ed all at­tor­neys to file their writ­ten sub­mis­sions with­in ten days of the com­mis­sion's end­ing, in or­der to aid the three-mem­ber team in their re­view of the ev­i­dence be­fore them and for them to sub­mit rec­om­men­da­tions based on the find­ings.

The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry was ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, An­tho­ny Car­mona, on De­cem­ber 2, 2014.

AT A GLANCE

The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry was set up to in­ves­ti­gate "the en­tire process which led to the con­struc­tion of the Las Al­turas Tow­ers at La­dy Young Gar­dens, Mor­vant, and all oth­er acts, mat­ters or de­ci­sions done or un­der­tak­en in­ci­den­tal to and in­clud­ing the con­struc­tion" of the project, which in­clude the pro­cure­ment process.

Two mul­ti-storey units of the Las Al­turas hous­ing project be­gan falling apart af­ter con­struc­tion and the $26 mil­lion tow­ers were ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion.

They were part of a larg­er project, which was orig­i­nal­ly bud­get­ed at $65 mil­lion and then rose to $90 mil­lion.

The com­mis­sion is chaired by for­mer Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim. The oth­er mem­bers in­clude civ­il en­gi­neers Dr My­ron Wing-Sang Chin and An­tho­ny Far­rell.

At­tor­ney Laraine Lutch­me­di­al is the sec­re­tary. They were ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona in De­cem­ber 2014.

In Sep­tem­ber 2014, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar rec­om­mend­ed an en­quiry in­to the project af­ter rais­ing con­cerns about the two tow­ers.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley, who was a for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter un­der the PNM, and Emi­ly Gaynor Dick-Forde who suc­ceed­ed him, have both de­nied blame in the mat­ter. At the time, Row­ley said though he wel­comed the probe, it would be an­oth­er waste of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey.

The com­mis­sion's at­tor­neys in­clude Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der and Jagdeo Singh, in­struct­ed by Alvin Pariags­ingh.

Queen's Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son and Lar­ry Lal­la are ap­pear­ing for the HDC.

Kathryn Den­bow and Bren­don Sul­li­van are ap­pear­ing for Ude­cott. Vin­da Ma­haraj and Kirt Wal­rond are ap­pear­ing on be­half of the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment.

Justin Phelps in­struct­ed by An­abelle Sook­lal is ap­pear­ing for Ge­ot­ech As­so­ciates Lim­it­ed (GA).

Emer­son John-Charles is ap­pear­ing on be­half of Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing Man­age­ment and Ser­vices (CE­MAS) and Steve Kistow En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices. Col­in Kan­ga­loo, in­struct­ed by Danielle Nieves, ap­pears on be­half of Ude­cott's chair­man Noel Gar­cia. Tecla Dun­can ap­pears on be­half of Calder Hart.