Panday: Airport Inquiry dragged on to fill pockets

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday on Friday evening lambasted the 170 days of hearings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Piarco airport development project, saying it was deliberately “dragged on to fill pockets.” He also said the proposed disbanding of the Integrity Commission was to set up a Commission “like that under Bernard.”

Chairman of the Inquiry, retired Chief Justice Clinton Bernard was also labelled several names  by both MP for Couva South Kelvin Ramnath and the UNC’s Chairman Senator Wade Mark. Ramnath insisted that the Inquiry did not just end, but Bernard was instructed by the PNM “to get the hell out.” The criticism of the Inquiry came at the UNC’s meeting in Sangre Grande on Friday night, in support of its candidates in the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation, for the July 14 Local Government elections. It was Mark who launched the first attack on the Inquiry, which ended public sittings on Friday.  Mark told the audience, of a couple hundred, that finally “the circus” on Richmond Street had come to an end. He said the Inquiry was “a national embarrassment and a spectacle of nonsense.”

Mark said at the end of the day, despite the ranting and ravings, Trinidad and Tobago had the most beautiful airport which was still standing and would be for a long time. He said just like the Commissions into the EBC and Biche High Court, nothing would come out of the Piarco Inquiry, except that it had one person going home with $1.5 million and another, with $1 million. Panday, during his turn at the podium, alleged that the PNM was so corrupt that they knew they would have to answer for it sooner or later, hence the proposal to abandon the Integrity Commission. But he said no such thing would be done. Government is considering replacing the Integrity Commission with an Anti-Corruption Commis-sion.

Panday added that the Piarco Inquiry was “deliberately dragged on and on, so that men could fill their pockets.” He describing the Commission as a “monumental waste of taxpayers’ money” pointing out that at the end of May a total of $5.5 million had been spent for the Commission. He detailed for his audience the fees paid to attorneys and Bernard to demonstrate his point. He said it was a political witch-hunt against the UNC. Panday noted that the DPP and the Law Association had criticised the Commission and a journalist was dragged before the Commission. He noted too that Sadiq Baksh was hounded and Bernard even used his position to call the late Justice Richard Crane a drunkard.