After two extensions for the submission of a final report, Chairman of the Walter Rodney Commis-sion of Inquiry (CoI) Sir Richard Cheltenham yesterday said that it will be handed over to the President on Monday.
Sir Richard along with Commissioners Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, QC, and Seenath Jairam, SC, are currently in Guyana to review the inquiry’s findings together and formulate the final report.
Yesterday they toured the Supreme Court Law Library Building along with Attorney General Basil Williams to ensure that it could accommodate their work over the next week. For some time now, construction works have been ongoing in the court compound and at present some work is being done on the Family Court, which is to be accommodated in the very building.
Sir Richard told reporters that it was important for them to meet, particularly since they are each in different jurisdictions. Jairam and Samuels-Brown reside in Trinidad and Jamaica, respectively.
“It is important that we meet and avoid overlapping and make sure we have a smooth running and coherent story at the end of the day,” he said.
The last hearing of the CoI was on July 28, 2015 and the commission was initially due to submit a final report containing its findings and recommendations by November 30. However, based on a request, the deadline was extended to December 15. Sir Richard later wrote requested a further extension to the end of February this year due to low productivity during the Christmas holiday season.
Asked how the early end of the proceedings will impact the commission’s conclusions, he told reporters that some of the Terms of Reference (ToR) were better supported in terms of evidence than others. “And so the premature termination of the public hearings would mean… that the report will not be as thorough as it would have been in other circumstances and it means too that, in so far as there were some individuals who were critically commented on in the course of the evidence who did not get a chance to answer, we would be very disinclined to make critical findings in relation to those who were criticised but who did not get the opportunity to answer those criticisms,” he said.
According to the Terms of Reference, the commissioners were to examine the facts and circumstances immediately prior, at the time of and subsequent to the June 13, 1980 death of Rodney in order to determine as far as possible who or what was responsible.
The commissioners were also to enquire into the cause of the explosion in which Rodney died, including whether it was an act of terrorism and if so who were the perpetrators. The then PNC government had been accused of engineering Rodney’s assassination on June 13, 1980, but has continually denied involvement.
Meanwhile, Williams, in brief comments, said that government does not necessarily agree with the Chairman’s position that there was a premature end to the hearings. “We believe that it is nearly two years now and there have been several extensions. We believe that a lot of money has been expended and it needs to come to an end,” he said.
Nonetheless, he said would ensure that the commissioners have suitable conditions “in which to complete the job.”
Williams later told reporters at his office that the commissioners will also have to make arrangements for their report to be printed. Asked how soon after submission he anticipates the final report will be made public, Williams said that one must remember that it was a presidential inquiry and therefore the President will first have to read the report, deliberate on it and then decide that happens next.
“It is his inquiry and he will determine what other steps he will take,” Williams said.
The CoI was initiated in April, 2014, by then president Donald Ramotar. Shortly after he took office in May last year, President David Granger had informed that the inquiry would be concluded.
