By Andre Bagoo Wednesday, March 10 2010

Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into Udecott and the construction sector, Professor John Uff yesterday assured he will submit his final report before Easter, as the commission announced that it is has asked President George Maxwell Richards for an extension of the deadline in the wake of Udecott filing late written submissions.

In an email to reporters yesterday, Uff said, “The report should be out before Easter (April 5).” A statement issued by the commission secretariat further elaborated.

“The commission has written to His Excellency the President to inform him that, as a result of late delivery of final submissions, a further extension to the commissioners’ programme will be needed,” the commission noted in a statement on its website.

At the same time, the commission assured that it will complete the report, the submission of which was subject to an unsuccessful challenge by Udecott, and submit it “as soon as possible.”

“The report of the commissioners is now at an advanced stage of preparation. However it remains the commissioners’ intention to complete their report and to deliver it to His Excellency the President as soon as possible.” The commission’s statement comes in the wake of a ruling by High Court judge Justice Mira Dean-Armorer who threw out an attempt by Udecott to block the submission of a final report to the President.

“The commissioners...note and welcome the judgment delivered on Friday 5 March dismissing claims of apparent bias by Udecott,” the commission statement read.

The statement, dated March 8, came as Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley, filed a response to Work and Transport Minister Colm Imbert’s closing submissions which raised questions over the Cleaver Heights housing project in Arima.

Rowley knocks Imbert’s closing submissions as “speculative, reckless and self-serving assertions” and accuses the minister of having a “penchant to create mischief”.

Rowley’s lawyers criticise Imbert for pursuing what they term a private agenda against a contractor at a public inquiry.

“Minister Imbert’s analyses before this commission are littered with innumerable adverse comment against his creditor Emile Elias, the principal of NHIC and NHIC,” attorneys Gilbert Petersen SC and Margaret Rose note. “The commission is urged to be mindful of his well publicised private difficulties with this contractor which must cause the independent-minded observer to ask whether his diligence is out of a sense of public duty or in furtherance of his private agenda.”

On a claim made by Imbert with regard to the timing of the negotiations of the Cleaver Heights projects, Rowley’s lawyers argue, “Minister Imbert’s loose assertion that ‘the conclusion is inescapable… that the parties were already deep in negotiation, if not already in agreement;’ prior to the issuance of the invitation for expressions of interest, flies in the face of the un-controverted evidence that NHIC and NHA/HDC continued in negotiations for over a year after the invitation was made before an agreement was reached.”

Over another claim by Imbert that the change of financing of the Cleaver Heights project was questionable, the lawyers argue the issue was a non-starter as there was no fixed arrangement with regard to private financing of the project initially.