Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Bam­boo #2 are ready for their le­gal bat­tle against the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to hold the State body ac­count­able for dev­as­tat­ing flood­ing since 2018.

How­ev­er, the list of lit­i­ga­tion has now grown af­ter the min­istry failed to com­ply with a re­quest un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA), prompt­ing a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter threat­en­ing to ap­ply for a leave for ju­di­cial re­view on the mat­ter.

Rep­re­sent­ing ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael, at­tor­ney Richard Jages­sar wrote the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary a let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 6.

In it he said his client sub­mit­ted a re­quest for doc­u­ments on De­cem­ber 2, how­ev­er, the min­istry did not re­spond to the re­quest nor pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion asked for with­in the stip­u­lat­ed time, there­by breach­ing the FOIA.

“The min­istry has not ren­dered a de­ci­sion as to whether my client’s FOIA Ap­pli­ca­tion for doc­u­ments and / or in­for­ma­tion has been ap­proved or re­fused with­in the statu­to­ry max­i­mum time lim­it of thir­ty (30) days and / or has failed to pro­vide the re­quest­ed doc­u­ments there­by breach­ing the FOIA,” the let­ter said.

The let­ter gives the min­istry 28 days to re­spond with the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion be­fore the ap­pli­ca­tion is filed. If filed, Jages­sar said the fol­low­ing re­liefs will be claimed in the ap­pli­ca­tion:

A de­c­la­ra­tion that in­tend­ed De­fen­dant has breached its statu­to­ry du­ty un­der Sec­tion 15 of the FOIA to take rea­son­able steps to en­able ap­pli­ca­tion to be no­ti­fied of the ap­proval or re­fusal as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble but in any oth­er case not lat­er than thir­ty (30) days af­ter the date on which the re­quest was du­ly made;

An or­der of man­damus com­pelling the in­tend­ed de­fen­dants to ren­der a de­ci­sion with re­spect to the claimant’s /ap­pli­cant’s re­quest sev­en days there­of whether its ap­pli­ca­tion has been ap­proved or re­fused in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 15 of the FOIA;

Al­ter­na­tive­ly, and /or ad­di­tion­al­ly a de­c­la­ra­tion that the pro­posed claimant /ap­pli­cant is en­ti­tled to ac­cess the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion pur­suant to its ap­pli­ca­tion un­der the FOIA;

Some of the in­for­ma­tion Ish­mael re­quest­ed were doc­u­ments or re­ports ex­plain­ing the cause of No­vem­ber’s flood­ing, writ­ten rea­sons why de­fects and en­croach­ments on the Ca­roni bank weren’t ad­dressed be­fore the last rainy sea­son, a de­tailed list of work done in prepa­ra­tion for the rainy sea­son, de­tails of the con­trac­tors hired and their scope of works, and de­tails of the work be­ing done to ad­dress the is­sue for Bam­boo 1 and 2.