Fees for the Chairman and members of the Commission of Enquiry into the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the construction sector have cost the taxpayer $11 million since its inception and are projected to cost a further $7 million in the next fiscal year, amounting to a total of $18 million.

This according to the Draft Estimates of Recurrent Expenditure for the financial year 2010, which was tabled on Monday, just prior to the presentation of the 2010 Budget by Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira in the House of Representatives.

This substantial expenditure in the face of the collapse of the Commission appears to strengthen the case for Government to take steps to validate acts and things done by the Commission.

Under the rubric ’Remuneration to the Chairman and Members of the Commissions of Enquiry’ the following figures appear for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. Actual expenditure for 2008-$2.9 million, revised expenditure for 2009- $8 million in 2009 and estimates for 2010- $7 million, amounting to a total of $18 million. However, it is uncertain whether the entire estimated cost (of $7 million) for 2010 would be incurred given the premature ending of the Commission and the abandonment of the last phase of the public hearings. Chairman John Uff, however, has indicated that the Commissioners intend to submit a report.

It is also uncertain whether the full allocation in 2008 related solely to the Uff Commission which began public hearings in September or whether it included the cost of previous Commissions of Enquiry.

However, this figure does not include the cost of legal fees for the various state agencies such as UDeCOTT, the Housing Development Corporation, NIPDEC and the Attorney General, all of which hired a battery of attorneys to represent them at the Commission.

The document also indicates that the cost of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) for this financial year-which starts at October 1, 2009 and ends on September 30, 2010- is estimated to be $235 million. This is a considerably smaller than the outlay for the Fifth Summit of the Americas according to the document which amounted to $10 million in 2008 and $450 million in 2009. But Government has also maintained that some of the expenditure for the Summit would apply to CHOGM, such as the purchase of luxury cars and buses. Government had given an original estimate of the costs of $630 million for both conferences.

The document also indicates that the Integrity Commission which has been in a state of suspension since February this year, has been allocated $21 million for the next financial year. Some $14 million was expended on the Commission in the financial year- October 2008 to September 2009.

The Draft Estimates of Expenditure for the financial year 2010 reveals that the Ministry of National Security has received the lion’s share of allocations among all ministries (outside of the Ministry of Finance which got $6 billion). National Security received $4.7 billion; followed by the Ministries of Health and Education which each got $3.9 billion. Public Utilities and Works and Transport came next, each receiving $2.7 billion. They were followed Social Development which was allocated $2.4 billion, Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education which got $2.3 billion and Local Government, which got $2 billion. The Ministry of Energy received $1.5 billion; Housing, Planning and Development-$1.2 billion; Culture-$613 million; Agriculture-$740 million; Foreign Affairs-$499 million; Office of the Prime Minister-$471 million; Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs-$388 million; Ministry of Trade-$308 million; Information Ministry-$304 million; Ministry of Tourism-$195 million; Ministry of Labour-$191 million; Ministry of the Attorney General-$188 million and Ministry of Legal Affairs-$113 million. The Office of the President received $28 million.

For the first time, the Review of the Economy was not tabled with the Budget documents. The document was on the Order paper but it was pulled back by the Government. Opposition Senator Wade Mark slammed Government for attempting to ’hide vital information’, saying it was ’mortally afraid for the country to see the truth’. He accused the Government of ’statistical conmanship’.

But the Finance Minister said yesterday there was an error in the document which had to be corrected. She said it should be ready by today. She said Government was not trying to hide anything and said Government was ’straight and upfront’ with the information and had levelled with the population on the size of the budget deficit. ’We just want to make sure that the information we give in the Review of the Economy is accurate and that is the only reason it was not tabled,’ she said.