Government and UDeCOTT are not fooling anyone with the latest move to amend the consent order to remove the stay on the proceedings of the Commission of Enquiry, Diego Martin West Dr Keith Rowley, said yesterday. 

Rowley insisted that Government should remove the board of UDeCOTT and withdraw the entire judicial review matter before the court.

’Anything short of that is a dereliction of duty,’ Rowley said as he commented on the latest turn of events that would see UDeCOTT returning to the court to amend an order imposed last Friday, which had effectively shut down the Commission until February 2010.

Rowley said Government should not allow the Commission to be hamstrung by UDeCOTT’s ’machinations, manipulations and expensive forays in the court’.

He said he was not interested in the point of view of the UDeCOTT board on whether they should resign or not. ’It is the duty of the Government to remove the board so that they cannot instruct lawyers to undermine the Commission,’ he said.

’If members of the Government are aggrieved by the Commission, they should go home ... if individuals on UDeCOTT board have problems with the Commission, let them go and take their own money and fight case in the courthouse.

’The members of the board are appointees of the Cabinet, they are not equity holders in the state company. If they do not like how Government is running public policy, then they free to resign and go home. UDeCOTT’s board has no rights beyond the shareholder’s rights. And the persons who are responsible for ensuring that the shareholder’s rights prevail is the Government, the trustee for the public,’ Rowley said.

Claiming that UDeCOTT was receiving the backing of ’high-ranking’ members of the Government to undermine the commission, Rowley said the logical thing would have been to remove UDeCOTT boss Calder Hart, whose personal conduct has come under scrutiny as a result of evidence which came before the commission. ’But instead he is holding his post and using other people on the board to portray UDeCOTT as a victim at huge cost to the public, while the objective is clear. A drunken man on a galloping horse could see that UDeCOTT’s objective is to undermine the commission,’ Rowley stated.

He said it was the ’height of effrontery’ to hear board members saying if they get a directive from the Government or the line minister they would have to consider it and discuss it with their lawyers (and not automatically implement it), ’when the law makes provision for the Corporation Sole to give written directives which must be followed. Where does UDeCOTT get its power from to defy the Government?’ he asked.