Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

As the coun­try awaits the find­ings of the fi­nal re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the Paria Div­ing Tragedy and what ac­tion may come from them, more than $626 mil­lion tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars have al­ready been spent on the last six Co­Es.

Not a sin­gle per­son has been held ac­count­able, ar­rest­ed or charged in con­nec­tion with the last five Co­Es to date.

On Wednes­day, CoE Chair­man Jerome Lynch, KC said the fi­nal cost of the Paria en­quiry was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $15.5 mil­lion.

Chair­man Lynch ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the re­port ‘would see the light of day’, but the ul­ti­mate de­ci­sion rests with the Cab­i­net which re­ceived a copy from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on Fri­day.

The fam­i­lies of the four de­ceased divers: Rishi Na­gas­sar, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Yusuf Hen­ry and Fyzal Kur­ban have asked for copies of the re­port, while the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union called for the re­port to be made pub­lic.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day that he plans to cor­re­spond with the Prime Min­is­ter this week, for­mal­ly re­quest­ing ac­cess to the re­port. 

Stress­ing the ur­gency of pub­lic dis­clo­sure, Ra­mad­har said, “We ap­pre­ci­ate that the Gov­ern­ment will need to re­flect deeply and re­lease it pub­licly. We are ask­ing for an ex­pe­di­tious re­lease.”

Five Co­Es com­mis­sioned be­fore the Paria en­quiry cost the State $611 mil­lion.

Cli­co CoE

The Fail­ure of CL Fi­nan­cial Lim­it­ed, Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed, CLI­CO In­vest­ment Bank Lim­it­ed, British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed, Caribbean Mon­ey Mar­ket Bro­kers Lim­it­ed and the Hin­du Cred­it Union Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed CoE end­ed in 2013 and cost more than $500 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi in 2019.

The fi­nal re­port was pub­lished on Ju­ly 16, 2014, and made avail­able to the pub­lic. The main prospec­tive wit­ness of the en­quiry for­mer CL Fi­nan­cial chair­man Lawrence Duprey did not ap­pear. Ac­cord­ing to its chair­man Sir An­tho­ny Col­man, more than five mil­lion pages of doc­u­ments were processed, while 77 lawyers ap­peared.

Coun­sel to the Paria CoE Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC de­scribed the Cli­co CoE as ‘a big waste of mon­ey’ in 2013, say­ing it did more harm than good, as it had the po­ten­tial to prej­u­dice a crim­i­nal probe in­to Cli­co’s col­lapse.

Ma­haraj said the en­quiry should not have oc­curred in the first place and the mil­lions of dol­lars spent to fa­cil­i­tate it should have in­stead been spent on re­sources for both the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and the po­lice “to re­tain the ser­vices of a foren­sic team to deal with the mat­ter”.

In Jan­u­ary 2009, in­sur­ance com­pa­ny Cli­co and some of its sub­sidiaries col­lapsed, re­sult­ing in a $17 bil­lion bailout–the largest in the coun­try’s his­to­ry. The col­lapse caused a ma­jor fi­nan­cial shock not just in Trinidad but through­out the Caribbean, se­ri­ous­ly im­pact­ing gov­ern­ments, or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als.

CoE in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor

The CoE in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor of T&T end­ed in 2009 and cost $46.2 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal in 2011. The CoE, chaired by Prof Jon Uff, be­gan in 2008 and end­ed in 2010.

Among its find­ings, the fi­nal re­port stat­ed that “It is ac­cept­ed that cor­rup­tion is a prob­lem of se­ri­ous pro­por­tions in T&T ... to which the con­struc­tion in­dus­try is par­tic­u­lar­ly prone.

“... Ude­cott’s ap­pli­ca­tion of its own rules dis­clos­es a wor­ry­ing lack of trans­paren­cy, as well as in­con­sis­ten­cy.”

The fi­nal 512-page re­port, which con­tained 91 rec­om­men­da­tions, was made pub­lic.

CoE in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup

The CoE in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup cost $31.8 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan in 2013.

The CoE, chaired by Sir David Sim­mons, QC, be­gan in 2010 and end­ed in 2013. The main prospec­tive wit­ness–the leader of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen Yasin Abu Bakr failed to ap­pear.

The re­port was made avail­able to the pub­lic and among its find­ings, it stat­ed that there were prob­lems with the state’s in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing sys­tem, as well as in­tel­li­gence shar­ing be­tween rel­e­vant in­tel­li­gence agen­cies. It al­so stat­ed that vic­tims of the coup ought to be com­pen­sat­ed, which has not hap­pened to date.

“The Act­ing Pres­i­dent, Mr Carter, signed the orig­i­nal and ini­tialled a copy of the doc­u­ment. It is note­wor­thy that the amnesty did not cov­er any acts by the in­sur­rec­tion­ists pri­or to 5.30 pm on 27 Ju­ly and did not take ac­count of the hostages at TTT. As the Com­mis­sion ex­plained in para­graphs 9.3 to 9.6 supra, the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil held that the amnesty was in­valid, prin­ci­pal­ly be­cause, at the time when the JAM re­ceived the amnesty, they did not treat the in­sur­rec­tion as at an end. They sought to con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions in an ef­fort to achieve fur­ther ob­jec­tives. In so do­ing, they did not com­ply with the con­di­tion to which the amnesty was sub­ject, name­ly, prompt com­pli­ance or, at least, com­pli­ance as soon as was prac­ti­ca­ble.

“Soon af­ter the JAM in­vad­ed the Par­lia­men­tary Cham­ber, they bat­tered Messrs. Robin­son, Richard­son and Sel­by Wil­son and tied up all the MPs. The Cham­ber was re­duced from its pris­tine state to a room of trem­bling, fear­ful bod­ies ly­ing on the floor sur­round­ed by con­geries of armed, in­tim­ida­to­ry vil­lains. Chaos reigned,” oth­er ex­cerpts from the re­port stat­ed.

CoE in­to the Las Al­turas Tow­ers

The CoE in­to the Las Al­turas Tow­ers project cost $24.5 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in 2016.

The CoE, chaired by re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim, was set up to in­ves­ti­gate the con­struc­tion of the Las Al­turas Tow­ers at La­dy Young Gar­dens, Mor­vant. For­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­point­ed the com­mis­sion af­ter two mul­ti-storey units of the hous­ing project be­gan falling apart af­ter con­struc­tion and were des­ig­nat­ed for de­mo­li­tion.

The fi­nal re­port, pre­sent­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2016, stat­ed that while there were no grounds for crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, civ­il ac­tion could be tak­en against for­mer Ude­cott chair­man Calder Hart, for­mer HDC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Noel Gar­cia, Ude­cott and the HDC for neg­li­gence in how the project was han­dled. Both Gar­cia and Hart filed law­suits against the com­mis­sion­ers.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley de­scribed the CoE as an ab­solute and colos­sal waste of time and mon­ey, as well as a witch-hunt.

CoE in­to the Solomon Ho­choy High­way

Mean­while, in Oc­to­ber, it was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young that $11.6 mil­lion has been spent on the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­pan­sion project.

He was then asked by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to say how much has been spent on that en­quiry to date.

“So far, the tax­pay­ers ex­pect­ed $3,196,000 in fees and then oth­er ex­pens­es, ap­prox­i­mate­ly eight mil­lion dol­lars, so a to­tal so far of fees and oth­er ex­pens­es of 11.6 mil­lion dol­lars,” Young said.

In a me­dia state­ment a short while af­ter the in­for­ma­tion was re­leased, Dr Mooni­lal re­ferred to it as the “Still­born CoE”.

He said the stun­ning rev­e­la­tion by Min­is­ter Young that the en­quiry cost tax­pay­ers $11 mil­lion with­out hold­ing a sin­gle meet­ing “is an­oth­er ex­am­ple of gross wastage” by the failed Row­ley regime.

“Is this a case of ‘ghost meet­ings?’ Eleven mil­lion dol­lars is a lot for tea and sand­wich­es! This is mad­ness, un­ac­cept­able and in­tol­er­a­ble when hos­pi­tals go with­out crit­i­cal med­ica­tions and equip­ment,” Mooni­lal said.

The Oropouche East MP said the Gov­ern­ment must pro­vide a com­plete break­down of spend­ing on goods and ser­vices for this com­mis­sion that has seen one scan­dal af­ter an­oth­er.

The CoE, chaired by re­tired Jus­tice Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour, was an­nounced in 2019. Min­is­ter Young, then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, said the CoE was re­spon­si­ble for in­ves­ti­gat­ing ap­par­ent ‘un­jus­ti­fi­able’ ex­pens­es in­curred by the state for lands–some of which are no longer need­ed for the project.

More than half a bil­lion dol­lars was al­leged­ly spent on land ac­qui­si­tion for the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way Ex­ten­sion un­der the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Paria CoE

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, Christo­pher Boodram and four oth­er divers were sucked in­to an un­der­wa­ter pipeline at num­ber 36 Sealine Ris­er on Berth num­ber six, Point-a-Pierre be­long­ing to Paria Fu­el Trad­ing while do­ing main­te­nance. Boodram was the on­ly sur­vivor.

Af­ter mas­sive pub­lic out­cry about the emer­gency re­sponse, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley or­dered a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in March 2022. This cost $15.5 mil­lion.

Oth­er Co­Es in T&T

(1) Re­port of the CoE In­to the Oil In­dus­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1963-1964

(2) Re­port of the CoE In­to All As­pects of Tenure of Build­ing, Land in Trinidad and To­ba­go, In­clud­ing the Com­plaints, Hard­ships, Prob­lems and Oth­er In­ci­dents Aris­ing From the Let­ting of “Build­ing Land” in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1977

(3) Re­port of the CoE in­to the Func­tion­ing of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion of T&T in 2002

(4) Re­port of the CoE in­to the op­er­a­tion and de­liv­ery of pub­lic health care ser­vices in Trinidad and To­ba­go (The Com­mis­sion was gazetted on Au­gust 12, 2004).