Panday: Integrity Commission shields Rowley

UNC LEADER Basdeo Panday alleged that Prime Minister Patrick Manning sent the Landate affair to the Integrity Commission in order to protect Minister of Housing, Dr Keith Rowley, from the fuller probe of a Commission of Inquiry. Panday was addressing a media conference at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. He hit Manning’s retraction of his previous vow to refer Landate to a Commission of Inquiry. Panday said the matter should be investigated by both a properly constituted Commission of Inquiry and the Integrity Commission. On Tuesday in the House of Representatives, Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar criticised the selection of Justice Annestine Sealey to a one-person Commission of Inquiry, and in reply, Manning instead referred the matter to the Integrity Commission.

However, Panday claimed only a Commission of Inquiry would be empowered to interview all the parties involved in Landate. He urged such a body be comprised of three persons with expertise in areas like accounting and building. Reporters asked if the Opposition had been sending mixed signals over which body it wanted probing Landate. Panday said: “There’s a role for both.” He claimed the Integrity Commission could not examine NH International, Warner Construction and Romain Associates. “That doesn’t come within the purview of the Integrity Commission.  Their job is to deal with ministers.” He said questions about contracts and the movement of materials could only be probed by a Commission of Inquiry. “Mr Manning had promised a Commission of Inquiry whose report was to be laid before Parliament. When he mentioned the Integrity Commission, surely that must have been in addition to his promise.” Was Manning’s change done to protect Rowley? “Yes,” said Panday, quipping, “It is flip-flop to cover-up. This is an attempt to cover-up this matter.”

He said Manning’s move meant the Integrity Commission would hold its hearing in private, lamenting: “No record or report will be laid before Parliament.” Asked what outcome he expected from the Integrity Commission, he shot, “Nothing. Cover-up.” He called for a three-person Commission of Inquiry, instead of just Justice Sealey, whom the Opposition was dissatisfied with over her inquiry into the Biche High School. Of Landate, Panday said, “A forensic investigation is what is required.” He urged such a Commission of Inquiry to sit in public, like the Bernard Commission into the Piarco Airport Project.

In a prepared statement, Panday called for a probe of all contracts awarded by the Government to all the companies involved in the Landate affair — Warner construction, NH International, and Romain and Associates. Panday listed the NH projects as the $134 million Scarborough Hospital, the $34 million phase one upgrade of San Fernando General Hospital, the new Customs Building, Siparia Administrative Complex, and multi-million dollar joint ventures with the Ministry of Housing. If NH was incorporated in the Cayman Islands, he asked, did it qualify to be under the Inter-American Development Bank’s rules of procurement to be the hospital contractor? He also asked whether there was a systematic siphoning of materials from the hospital to Landate? Panday concluded by calling for a properly-resourced Commission of Inquiry into Landate.