The Commission of Enquiry into the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the construction sector is due to resume hearings on December 2.

Sources revealed yesterday that commission chairman, Prof John Uff, sent out a directive under the recently drafted Consent Order for the resumption of hearings. That Consent Order requires the commission to give UDeCOTT 28 days notice if it proposes to resume hearings or to submit a report. Uff set the hearings for exactly 28 days from yesterday. It remains to be seen what UDeCOTT will do in response.

Attorney General John Jeremie, in winding up the debate on the Validation Bill in the House of Representatives two weeks ago, said he was authorised by Prime Minister Patrick Manning to say that Government would do all in its power to ensure that the commission completed its work.

Sources revealed yesterday that President George Maxwell Richards assented to the Validation and Immunity Act on Tuesday night. Uff was immediately informed and he yesterday issued his directive for the hearings.

The hearings will not come too soon for some of the other parties such as the Diego Martin West MP Keith Rowley or for the Joint Consultative Council.

In fact, the JCC wrote to the commission on Tuesday, urging it to ’make every effort, and to take all such steps as may be required by law to resume its public hearings and ensure that Mrs Sherrine Hart is compelled to appear at such hearings and give sworn testimony’.

The JCC also provided the commission with a copy of a business card of ’Allen Lee’, director of CH Development and Construction Pte Ltd, whom it alleged was the brother of Sherrine Lee Hart.

’The emergence of the said business card further reinforces the view of the JCC that Mrs Sherrine Hart should be summoned before the commission to answer the very serious questions which have arisen surrounding the award of contract for the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower to CH Construction Limited by UDeCOTT,’ the letter dated November 3 (Tuesday) stated.

The JCC had written to the commission on August 12, requesting that it use its coercive powers under the Commission of Enquiry Act to compel the Chief Immigration Officer to produce all documentation and records produced, submitted or signed by Mr Ng Chin Poh and Mr Lee Hup Ming, relative to their visits to Trinidad and Tobago for the period 2003 to date, including all documentation containing information of their respective intended addresses while in Trinidad and Tobago.

It also asked the commission to summon Sherrine Lee Hart to answer questions as to whether she is in any way related to Ng Chin Poh or Lee Hup Ming. The JCC related that Carl Khan gave sworn evidence that Lee Hup Ming was one and the same person as Allen Lee Hup Ming and that he was the brother of Sherrine Lee Hart.