If any board member had the slightest perception that anything was amiss in the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT), they would leave at once.So said UDeCOTT’s deputy chairman Krishna Bahadoorsingh at a press conference called on Monday to explain why the board would not resign despite widespread calls for them to go.

So the board members - Messrs Michael Annisette, Anthony Cherry, Wendell Dottin, Dr Bahadoorsingh, and, of course, Calder Hart who was not present - supposedly have not the slightest inkling that anything is foul in the state of UDeCOTT.

Dr Bahadoorsingh was using the term ’amiss’ in the narrow sense of ’corrupt’. But, in the normal meaning of the term, it can hardly be argued that everything is all right with the State-owned corporation. The revelations made so far by UDeCOTT’s own officials, including Mr Hart, reveal a litany of wastage of taxpayers’ money and poor management practices. But even if the board members do not consider such inefficiencies to be ’amiss’, the fact is that the vast majority of concerned citizens do not trust or have no confidence in them. On that basis alone, much is amiss.

However, board member Michael Annisette, who this week has been making the talkshow rounds to defend UDeCOTT and his own position as an Independent Senator, has attributed the public’s perception to media bias. In one interview, he explained this perception by comparing the negative views of UDeCOTT with the invasion of Iraq since, according to Mr Annisette, everyone in the world falsely believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) because of the media.

In point of fact, people believed the claim because US president George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair misled the world about WMDs; and even then there was still considerable scepticism about their claims. But, following Mr Annisette’s analogy, we wonder who he believes is lying about UDeCOTT. Is it Dr Keith Rowley, who has himself been vindicated of allegations made by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, chief champion for Mr Hart, and Housing Minister Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde, the line Minister for UDeCOTT?

Or is it UDeCOTT’s chief operating officer Ms Neelandra Rampaul or Chairman Hart himself, whose own testimonies before the Uff Commission of Enquiry have done much to solidify public perceptions about UDeCOTT?

While the allegations about UDeCOTT have yet to be tested in a court of law, history suggests that citizens’ perceptions are likely to be accurate. From the DC-9 scandal to the Caroni Racing Complex to ISCOTT to the Piarco Airport project, public concerns about corruption, nepotism, and cost overruns have invariably proven true. But perhaps UDeCOTT is the exception to this rule; or perhaps its board members are like those legendary monkeys who see and hear no evil.