After having cost taxpayers more than $3 million so far, the Commission of Enquiry into the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the construction sector has had no legal standing from day one, sources told the Sunday Express yesterday.

They said this was because according to the Commission of Enquiry Act of 1982, the enquiry was supposed to have been published in the Trinidad and Tobago Gazette (or gazetted) and this was never done.

The enquiry’s chairman, British Prof John Uff, QC, is expected to hold a news conference tomorrow at 11 a.m. to announce the debacle and say that the fourth round of public hearings that was supposed to begin at 9 a.m. will be adjourned ’until further notice’.

’Because of the failure to publish it in the Gazette, it is totally ineffective.... My understanding is that they are saying it goes right back to day one, that everything is ineffective,’ one source said.

Sources confirmed last night that Uff sent an e-mail to all the parties in the enquiry yesterday informing them of the news conference tomorrow and the adjournment of the sittings until further notice.

Section 15 of the Commission of Enquiry Act states: ’All commissions under this Act and all revocations of any such commission, shall be published in the Gazette, and shall take effect from the date of publication.’

Attorney General John Jeremie, who is out of the country and expected to return to Trinidad and Tobago today, could not be reached for comment last evening.

The Sunday Express understands that Uff is in London and is due to arrive in Trinidad and Tobago today.

One source said that the legal counsel for the enquiry, led by Jairam QC, advised the Commission of a ruling by the Privy Council in 2007 in the case of the Richard Joachim and Glenford Stewart vs the Attorney General of St Vincent and the Grenadines and Ephraim Georges which stated that a Commission of Enquiry is valid once it is published in the Gazette.

The Law Lords did so as they referred to section 16 of the Commission of Enquiry Act of St Vincent and the Grenadines in response to the question of the legal standing of any commission that is not gazetted.

’The answer their Lordships unhesitatingly give to that question is that Parliament must indeed be taken to have intended the consequence of non-publication of the commission to be total ineffectiveness. That intention is as plain as can be from the last ten words of section 16: ’and shall take effect from the date of such publication’, the Privy Council ruled.

In response to a question posed by Opposition Senator Wade Mark, Energy Minister Conrad Enill told the Upper House on July 30, that Uff had been paid just over $2 million as of that date for his services.

Enill said that as of February 28, 2009, the sum of $3,096,723.05 was expended in respect of the functioning of the Commission but added that sum does not include monies to be paid to legal counsel.

’I should note that as of February 28, 2009, no payments were effected in respect of the retention of legal counsel to the Commission of Enquiry,’ Enill said.

The enquiry has seen the submission of volumes of written evidence as well as verbal testimony from several witnesses, including Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert, Housing Minister Dr Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde, UDeCOTT executive chairman Calder Hart, other senior UDeCOTT officials and Diego Martin MP, Dr Keith Rowley, who is a former minister of housing.

The fourth round of public hearings of the enquiry was supposed to explore the evidence submitted by Carl Khan, in support of his claim that Hart’s brother-in-law is a director of CH Development and Construction Ltd, which received a $368 million contract for the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower project.

The enquiry was also set to examine the controversial Cleaver Heights housing project in more detail in September.

In Parliament last September, Manning alleged that $10 million went missing from the Cleaver Heights project and asked Rowley about the matter, since he had been the housing minister when the then National Housing Authority (NHA) received the contract for the project.

Rowley has maintained he knows nothing about the matter and is not guilty of any wrongdoing.