THE EDITOR: On April 24, 2002, then president Arthur NR Robinson appointed five citizens to conduct a commission of enquiry (CoE) into the Piarco Airport Development Project that was shrouded in claims of widespread corruption.

I was one of the commissioners so appointed and we delivered our report to then president George Maxwell Richards on August 31, 2003, 16 months later.

Today, I am one of three commissioners still alive and am well placed to observe and comment on the statements currently in circulation in the media about the legal cases that are still before the courts after 19 years.

I find it impossible to remain silent in the face of the blatant attempt to rewrite the history of the Piarco corruption accusations by the advancing of a myth by a particular partisan group to the effect that the cases before the courts are the result of political persecution and not proper legal prosecution arising from the CoE.

On the one hand, without any shadow of a doubt, I can confirm that the evidence presented to the enquiry was free of any political bias against the accused.

Also, there was no political interference in the conduct of the enquiry or in the conclusions drawn by the commissioners and the recommendations we made. I say this without fear of contradiction and I totally reject the assertion about political persecution.

By separate letter to Prime Minister Rowley, I have once again reminded the Government that the Piarco Airport enquiry cost taxpayers $10 million and that the public has the right to know the commissioners' findings and recommendations made to improve public procurement and project management of large public sector construction projects.

Without the adoption or adaptation of all or some of the recommendations, the country has repeated over the past ten years some of the Piarco Airport project mistakes at an additional cost of millions of taxpayers' dollars.

I hope that other voices will be raised to call on the Government to table in Parliament the Piarco Airport enquiry report and to publish it for public information without further delay.

The reason then given by prime minister Manning for not publishing the report was that forensic investigator Bob Lindquist had recommended that the government not publish it so as to ensure that investigations into the matter would not be prejudiced.

The commissioners felt that was not a valid reason for keeping our report secret but, even if that reason had some validity 20 years ago, it certainly is not valid today after the investigations have been completed and there has been so much exposure of the facts in the courts and the media arising from the trials that have been ongoing.

It is in the public's interest to have the report published without any further delay. The citizens of this country deserve no less.

VICTOR HART

via e-mail

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