The best thing that can be said about the recent ’victory’ for the Uff Commission of Enquiry is that someone in the Government felt embarrassed enough to attempt to deal with a clearly untenable situation in which a State Enterprise was blatantly frustrating the will of the President and the Government, the expressed wishes of the Attorney General and, most important of all, the people.

The worst thing that can be said is that every opinion-and we are not talking about Dr Keith Rowley-in all corners of the country suggests that nobody feels that they would live to see the resumption of hearings or the publication of the report, provided for in the court-approved consent order, dated October 9.

The fact is that Government forced UDeCOTT to amend the original consent order, which had shut down the Commission completely, only after outrage was expressed by the business community, civil society and the media.

While the publicly expressed determination of the Attorney General in pursuing this matter is to be commended, it is unfortunate that perception persists that not much was achieved in the High Court last Friday; and that what was given with one hand was taken with the other.

Even if the Commission wants to resume hearings or publish a report, it cannot, unless it gives UDeCOTT 28 days notice, a situation unprecedented in the history of Trinidad and Tobago jurisprudence. And at the expiration of that 28 days, the UDeCOTT is free to go to the court and petition it for any adjustment it deems appropriate. If the High Court says no, it can go to the Court of Appeal and if it loses there, it can go to the Privy Council. So the state enterprise still has plenty time, clout and apparently lots of taxpayers’ money, to weave a legal web.

What other individual or corporate citizen (especially one wholly owned by the state) has ever been able to get an investigatory body to agree to give 28 days notice before it can publish its findings? Where is the precedent for that?

Politically it gets even worse. The mere fact that Government is giving UDeCOTT additional work-to prepare Cabildo Chambers for the Parliament-tells the country that the Government does not at all consider any of the evidence placed before its own Commission as cause for pause. If Government had the slightest belief that there was something wrong based on the evidence presented to its Commission, or if it paid any attention to public sentiment arising out of the revelations before that Commission of Enquiry, the very last thing it would do is to place more public funds and responsibility in the hands of the Hart-led UDeCOTT board. But this is precisely what the Government is doing, virtually rubbing our collective face in the whole mess that is UDeCOTT, treating the public with total contempt. Why else would Prime Minister Patrick Manning tour the Centre for the Performing Arts with Calder Hart last Wednesday?

When the HDC Board did not accept the allegations that $10 million was missing from the Cleaver Heights project, the Board-with the exception of the Chairman, Andrew McIntosh, who had only recently been appointed to replace Andre Monteil-was unceremoniously dismissed-this board, whose only crime was that it had built and delivered more houses than any previous NHA/HDC board in the history of this country.

We agree with the Attorney General that the UDeCOTT board should not frustrate a Commission appointed by the President on the advice of the Government. The problem is, Mr Attorney General, this was exactly what the Government is allowing to happen.