Thursday, August 27 2009

CHAIRMAN of the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute (TTTI) Victor Hart yesterday called on the Government to make public the findings of a report into the collapse of the Caroni Bailey bridge one year ago, as he warned that that report’s recommendations could have prevented last week’s collapse of the Balandra bridge.

“The TTTI has been calling over the last few years for Government to have greater transparency in relation to reports of commissions of inquiry,” Hart said at a press conference held at the offices of contractor Emile Elias on Long Circular Road, St James.

“We have been calling, for instance, over the last year for the publication of the report into the Caroni bridge collapse which involved the loss of one life.

“The report on the Caroni bridge project if published by now might well have had recommendations which could have prevented the collapse of the Balandra bridge with its recommendations about maintenance, inspection and so on,” Hart said, who referred to a similar delay in the release of the Piarco inquiry report.

“The TTTI’s position is that the Government not only had to talk about transparency and accountability but also to put it into practice by the Piarco inquiry report and the Caroni report and by so doing we might in fact forestall some of the problems we have experienced to great cost.”

On August 2, 2008 Ramdath Bissoo, 44, of Clarke Road, Penal, was killed after the Caroni Bailey bridge collapsed.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning subsequently appointed engineers Keith Sirju and Dawood Pandor to investigate the incident alongside Rossinni Castro. The team was mandated to examine the procedures employed in the dismantling of the Caroni bridge; investigate whether there was compliance with all codes of practice, methodologies and standards in the dismantling of a bridge of that nature; and conduct all the requisite structural tests and analyses to complete the investigation. The report was submitted to the Prime Minister but has not been made public to date.