An­na-Lisa Paul

The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Las Al­turas hous­ing project at La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant, will re­sume to­day at 9.30 am at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain.The sec­ond ses­sion of the en­quiry, which is be­ing chaired by for­mer Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim, is sched­uled to con­tin­ue for three days on­ly, in or­der to ac­com­mo­date three for­eign-based wit­ness­es on be­half of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).

Dur­ing the last hear­ing of the first ses­sion on March 20, at­tor­ney for the Com­mis­sion Jagdeo Singh re­vealed that the wit­ness­es would in­clude Frank Ar­land, a ge­ot­ech­ni­cal en­gi­neer of Mueser Rut­ledge Con­sult­ing En­gi­neers in New York; Dr Robert Ratay, a foren­sic struc­tur­al en­gi­neer from New York; and John Kan­gos of Sev­er­an Con­sult­ing In­ter­na­tion­al in Flori­da.

Singh al­so as­sured Ibrahim that ef­forts were be­ing made to lo­cate for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T Calder Hart, and for­mer HDC gen­er­al man­ag­er Noel Gar­cia, to have them ap­pear be­fore the Com­mis­sion.Re­spond­ing to queries from Ibrahim on the last date, Ude­cott's at­tor­ney Fay­dia Mo­hammed said ef­forts were made via Fed Ex to con­tact Hart, who is be­lieved to be liv­ing in Fort Laud­erdale, Flori­da, US.

Gar­cia is said to be liv­ing and work­ing in Ghana.HDC's at­tor­ney Vin­cent Nel­son, QC, had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that Gar­cia had de­clined to pro­vide a wit­ness state­ment when asked, fol­low­ing which they lost con­tact with him.Seem­ing­ly dis­sat­is­fied with Mo­hammed's an­swer that every ef­fort was be­ing made to have Hart present him­self be­fore the Com­mis­sion, Ibrahim sug­gest­ed that there were le­gal means which could be em­ployed to com­pel him to ap­pear.

Ibrahim has promised that ac­com­mo­da­tions would be made not to keep Hart un­du­ly when he does ap­pear, while there was al­so the rec­om­men­da­tion that an of­fer be made to pay Gar­cia's trav­el ex­pens­es back to T&T, in or­der for him to tes­ti­fy.Both Hart and Gar­cia have been deemed "im­por­tant wit­ness­es" in the en­quiry.Dur­ing the 13-day en­quiry four wit­ness­es have so far tes­ti­fied be­fore the Com­mis­sion.

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 in­cludes 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 last De­cem­ber. Last Sep­tem­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar rec­om­mend­ed an en­quiry in­to the project af­ter rais­ing con­cerns about the two tow­ers which had to be de­mol­ished.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who was a for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter un­der the PNM, as well as Emi­ly Gaynor Dick-Forde, who suc­ceed­ed him, have dis­tanced them­selves from blame. Row­ley said though he wel­comed the probe, it would be an­oth­er waste of tax­pay­ers' dol­lars.

Le­gal Minds

At­tor­neys for the Com­mis­sion in­clude Pamela El­der, SC and Jagdeo Singh–both of whom are in­struct­ed by Alvin Pariags­ingh.Ap­pear­ing on be­half of the HDC are Vin­cent Nel­son, QC and Lar­ry Lal­la.Kathryn Den­bow is Ude­cott's lead at­tor­ney, and ap­pear­ing along­side her is Fay­dia Mo­hammed and Bren­don Sul­li­van.At­tor­ney Justin Phelps is ap­pear­ing along­side An­abelle Sook­lal for Ge­ot­ech As­so­ciates Lim­it­ed (GA), while Emer­son John-Charles and Zeno­bia Camp­bell-James are ap­pear­ing on be­half of Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing Man­age­ment and Ser­vices.