PADARATH: LEGAL ACTION COMING FOR UDECOTT
Princes Town MP, Barry Padarath slammed the Chairman and board of UDECOTT for breaching the Freedom of Information Act. Padarath indicated that one of his constituency executive members filed a Freedom of Information application asking who were the contractors awarded work on the the Brian Lara Stadium during the period September 8th, 2015 to August 2016 and the values of the contracts and the process by which they were awarded.
Padarath indicated that after several months there has been no response from UDECOTT, the company responsible for the works being done to the controversial stadium.
Padarath stated that the board and chairman of UDECOTT has violated Section 15 of the Freedom of Information Act, which says ” a public authority shall take reasonable steps to enable an applicant to be notified of the approval or refusal of his request as soon as practicable but in any case no later than thirty days after the day on which the request was duly made”.
Padarath in a press release indicated that UDECOTT appeared to be returning to the old days of secrecy, corruption and mismanagement under this chairman and board as we had seen between 2007 to 2010. He indicated that it appeared that the company was hiding information on who were the persons receiving multi-million dollar contacts for the Brian Lara Stadium as well as the true cost that was being incurred by tax payers for the project.
The Princes Town MP questioned whether the failure of the management of UDECOTT to respond to the FOI’s was an attempt to shield financiers of the People’s National Movement from public scrutiny. Padarath recalled that there was much speculation in the national community that the wives of government Ministers and PNM honchos received contracts to do work on the stadium.
The Princes Town MP said plans were afoot to file the necessary court action against UDECOTT who signed for receiving the application on August 29th 2016.
Padarath called on the Chairman and the board to respect the laws of the land and to make the information available to the public in the shortest possible time. He said despite the silence and inaction from the management of UDECOTT, he was intent on exposing the waste, mismanagement and corruption that continues to mire the Brian Lara Stadium.