Thursday 20th October, 2005
NH International sues Land Date commission
By Jada Loutoo
Contracting firm NH International (Caribbean) Ltd (NHIC) has sued the now disbanded Scarborough hospital/Land Date commission of enquiry, claiming the commission was biased in its conduct against it.
In an application in the Port-of-Spain High Court, NHIC is seeking a review of the commission’s findings and recommendations in its report to the President.
The commission, which was chaired by retired Justice Annestine Sealey and comprised members Chandraban Sharma, president of the Association of Professional Engineers, and St Kitts architect Eustace Hobson, was appointed by President George Maxwell Richards on May 5.
It was set up to look into the procurement processes and the award of contracts to NHIC and Warner Construction, as well as allegations that material was removed from the hospital project site to Land Date, the private housing development at Mason Hall, Tobago, owned by the wife of Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley.
In its application before Justice Charmaine Pemberton, who granted NHIC leave to have the commission’s findings reviewed, the company complained that the commission’s lead counsel demonstrated bias and raised the real possibility that the commissioners findings were also biased and erroneous.
Trevor Lee, SC, appeared for the commission at the enquiry, although his name was not referred to in NHIC’s lawsuit.
Towards, the end of the enquiry, which sat publicly in July, NHIC pulled out, claiming it did so after it formed the view that the procedure of the commission had “transgressed the rules of natural justice.”
“The applicant had from the outset been desirous of participating in the hearings of the commission,” NHIC said in its lawsuit.
In its report, which is yet to be laid in Parliament although Prime Minister Patrick Manning promises it will be soon, the commission said the “appropriate authorities” should visit the Larceny Act “with a view to addressing the illegal act (if so found by them) committed by NHIC by the removal of Nipdec’s materials” from the hospital site to the Land Date project.
It also suggested Nipdec revisit its contract with NHIC.
The company has since withdrawn from the hospital project which is said to be some $59 million over budget and is negotiating with the Health Ministry to disengage itself from the project.
But NHIC is claiming that the commission’s lawyer failed to draw the commission’s attention to testimony of several witnesses, including NHIC’s own Mark Hood and Roy Malchina, as it provided excerpts of both men’s testimony, which it said could have assisted its case.
It also argued that the “apparent bias” of counsel to the commission tainted the performance of his functions and “on this basis as well, the findings and recommendations contained in the report are vitiated by bias and cannot stand, whether correct or not.”
NHIC also took issue with the commission’s refusal to call James Duffy, former project manager at the hospital site, now resident in Angola.
The commission was set up after Opposition chief whip Ganga Singh, in Parliament last year, levelled accusations against Rowley.
As it called on the court to quash the findings and recommendations of the report, NHIC also wants a declaration that the content of the report are voided by bias.
NHIC is represented by Alvin Fitzpatrick, SC, Ricki Harnanan and Adrian Byrne.
http://legacy.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-10-20/news6.html