Govt owe$ Uff investigatorBy Andre Bagoo Friday, March 12 2010
click on pic to zoom in
Gerry Mc Caffrey...
WHILE ATTORNEY General John Jeremie announced on Wednesday that forensic investigator Bob Lindquist was appointed since September 2009 to probe Udecott, the chartered engineer Gerry Mc Caffrey, who was hired by the Uff Commission of Inquiry to probe Udecott, has to date not been totally paid by the State.
Newsday yesterday learnt that while the Attorney General appeared to have hired Lindquist to probe the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower in downtown Port-of-Spain and the Brian Lara Stadium project in Tarouba, Mc Caffrey has to date only been paid 75 percent of the fees owed to him by the Government.
The failure of the State to settle Mc Caffrey’s accounts will place the State’s claims over its handling of Udecott, and in particular the time-line enumerated by Jeremie, under further scrutiny.
In March 2009, the Government refused to pay for a return ticket for Mc Caffrey to travel to Trinidad to continue his probe into Udecott projects after it emerged that — in an initial report — he found that there was more “smoke than mischief” in the Cleaver Heights housing project. At the same time, the Government criticised his report and argued that his fees — which had been approved by an independent State-sanctioned lawyer — were too high.
At a post-Cabinet press briefing that month Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert said Mc Caffrey’s fees had “escalated” from $150,000 to $2.5 million.
Yet notwithstanding Mc Caffrey’s probe, which saw him examine Udecott projects, Lindquist was later hired to do the same thing.
Yesterday the time-line of the appointment of Lindquist came under scrutiny with checks revealing that while the Canadian was appointed in September 2009, Manning continued to publicly defend and praise Hart and Udecott.
On October 21, 2009, Manning, during debate on a bill to validate the Uff Commission of Inquiry in Parliament, said, “The attacks on Udecott came fast and furious from the word go because what Udecott was trying to do, acting as the agent of the State, was to bring about a new order.” He lashed out at what he called “the tyranny of the lynch mob.”
“They want to get Calder Hart but let me tell you it is not Calder Hart. It is not Udecott. It is the Prime Minister and the Government that is what they are after!” While Carl Khan, the ex- husband of Mrs Sherinne Hart, wife of former Udecott executive chairman Calder Hart, has deposed links between the Harts and a Udecott firm, Manning said of those who noted Khan’s evidence, “They are not interested in the truth. They prefer to rely on the evidence of a jilted lover.”
At the opening of the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) in November last year, Manning hailed the Udecott chairman and noted, “Many can talk but few can build,” Manning said. “As the Bible says, by their deeds they shall be known.” He called the academy “a masterpiece owned by the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
On January 7, Manning praised Hart, saying he was of the calibre to sit on the Integrity Commission. He told MPs in Parliament, “Don’t rule it out! Don’t rule it out!”
Other members of Cabinet, apparently unaware of Jeremie’s appointment of Lindquist, also continued to defend and praise Udecott. They included Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert on October 21, 2009; and Planning Minister Emily Dick-Forde who this week continued to defend Udecott in the wake of Hart’s resignation.
On October 15, Dick-Forde criticised the “campaign of injustice and unfair attacks” on Udecott, denying it was a “rogue elephant”. On the same date, at the post-Cabinet press briefing at the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre at La Fantasie, St Ann’s, Imbert said, “There is absolutely no evidence that the head of Sunway is the brother-in-law of Calder Hart. I have met the various directors of Sunway and I am certain that none of them are the brother-in-law of Calder Hart.” Five days later, he said there was a “cartel” in the local construction industry against Udecott.
