Attorney General John Jeremie is waiting on the advice of his attorneys before deciding on the best option to correct the non-gazetting of the Commission of Enquiry into the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the construction sector.

Those options include the passage of a Validation Act that can retroactively give effect to the Commission under the Commission of Enquiry Act and the immediate gazetting of the Commission.

’I am looking at all the options....of course, it is a high priority,’ Jeremie told reporters in the Red House, Port of Spain, after yesterday’s 2009/2010 budget presentation.

He would give no specific deadline as to when he will recommend the best course of corrective action to the Cabinet.

Under section 15 of the Commission of Enquiry Act, a commission shall only take effect after the date of publication in the Trinidad and Tobago Gazette but the ongoing commission was not gazetted even though it had been operating since late last year.

Jeremie described what has taken place as ’a basic error’ that should never have occurred.

His immediate past predecessor in office, Bridgid Annisette-George, was the Attorney General when the Commission was appointed by President George Maxwell Richards in September 2008.

Nonetheless, Jeremie was asked if he could explain how the non-gazetting of the Commission could have taken place.

’It is very embarrassing. I can’t make any comment on that (the cause)...I don’t think it would happen again. It was a basic error, it should not to have taken place,’ Jeremie said.

Opposition MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar told reporters at a news conference after yesterday’s budget presentation that the gazetting of the Commission ’is a function of the Cabinet and the head of the Cabinet and of the legal adviser of the Cabinet, the Attorney General’.

Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley, who is a witness in the Enquiry, yesterday reiterated his call over the weekend for the Government to bring a Validation Bill to the Parliament as soon as possible.

about this, Jeremie said, ’I’m looking at the question that’s all I could say. A note is being done for me, I am looking at it..My attorneys are doing a note.’

Calling for an ’end to the casting of the blame’, Persad-Bissessar said the passage of a Validation Act would ensure that the millions of taxpayers dollars spent on the enquiry would not go to waste.

’For myself and the Opposition we would have no hesitation in supporting legislation that will be designed to ensure that what has taken place at the Commission of Enquiry....that all that work and all that money at the Commission of Enquiry is not lost,’ Persad-Bissessar said

At a news conference yesterday morning, the Enquiry’s chairman, Prof John Uff, said that under the common law, the Enquiry still has legal effect even as he announced its public hearings have come to an end.

’I don’t wish to make any comment on what Prof Uff has said, I was not around and I was in the Parliament at that time so I need to inform myself before I can properly comment on it,’ Jeremie said.