The As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of T&T (APETT) is call­ing for the re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project to be made pub­lic.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, APETT said, “The re­port was de­liv­ered to the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of T&T on Au­gust 31, 2003 and is yet to be laid in Par­lia­ment and made pub­lic. In the mean­time, the coun­try has con­tin­ued to suf­fer from the ef­fects of cor­rup­tion and poor man­age­ment in the ex­pen­di­ture of pub­lic funds for gov­ern­ment cap­i­tal projects. Some of these is­sues were again high­light­ed by the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the con­struc­tion sec­tor.”

The COE in­to the Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project was ap­point­ed by for­mer Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son in April 2002 fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of ma­jor cor­rup­tion and fraud. Af­ter an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od and 167 pub­lic hear­ings head­ed by COE chair­man Clin­ton Bernard, SC and in­clud­ing com­mis­sion­ers Marie Ange Knights, Pe­ter By­noe, Kei­th Sir­ju, and Vic­tor Hart, the re­port was hand­ed in.

APETT said Sir­ju, By­noe and Hart are all still mem­bers of con­struc­tion as­so­ci­a­tions. Last month, Hart wrote to Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley call­ing on him to make the re­port pub­lic.

Mean­while, a sim­i­lar call was made by the In­sti­tute of Sur­vey­ors of T&T (ISTT) which said that af­ter 20 years the re­port can­not be con­sid­ered prej­u­di­cial to the in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The ISTT added that tax­pay­ers fund­ed the re­port­ed $10 mil­lion Com­mis­sion of En­quiry and there­fore they should know the out­come.

Giv­en that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter has au­thor­i­ty over all Co­Es, Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for a re­sponse to their re­quest. He did not re­spond.

Both APETT and the ISTT are call­ing for the im­me­di­ate and full procla­ma­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Prop­er­ty Act.

APETT said, “State agen­cies which have not de­vel­oped the nec­es­sary in­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments to be in com­pli­ance with the Act by this time should be sanc­tioned ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.”

In Jan­u­ary 2023, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour Se­nior Coun­sel (SC) said the Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to its im­ple­men­ta­tion and work con­tin­ues to be done for its op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion.

The AG was at the time re­spond­ing to a ques­tion by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark in the Sen­ate.

Ar­mour said, “As part of this up­date, I am able to state that since my state­ment in Par­lia­ment on June 22, 2022, along with le­gal of­fi­cers of my min­istry, I have met and en­gaged with the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tor and his team. This was fol­lowed up by the OPR (Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor) writ­ing to me on Au­gust 25, 2022, en­clos­ing a pack­age of doc­u­ments. This pack­age has been and con­tin­ues to be un­der re­view by le­gal of­fi­cers of my min­istry.”