C.O.I. will Request Documents from Industry Stakeholders

As we have reported, the B.S.I. has placed on record that it cannot share proprietary and confidential information. O’Brien says that following their meetings with industry stakeholders, the commission will be putting together a list of documents that it will be requesting from stakeholders, including B.S.I. He noted that the commission operates with a degree of legal authority to request information it believes will assist them in their deliberations.

 

Hugh O’Brien, Lead Coordinator, Commission of Inquiry

“B.S.I. have made their concerns public. They’ve issued a public release. One of the statements that they have made, I will say categorically, is false. The commission has never changed its focus.  The terms of reference of the commission of inquiry, it was drafted and there were concerns that B.S.I. raised. That’s when I kind of got involved and the prime minister asked me to, and I said, we’ve had discussions with B.S.I. They sent back recommendations from their standpoint, and we made adjustments to the terms of reference, but we never gave in to what B.S.I. wanted. The terms of reference was modified, tweaked, but has remained with the same initial structure. B.S.I. obviously is concerned in their view that some of the aspects that are required by the commissioners to do, for example, to look at costings of some components of the processing side, manufacturing costs, the bagging and those costs that are in B.S.I.’s view  is a private arrangement between them and the cane farmers association and should not be subject to any external opinion and views because they have. That’s their territory. They might be correct, but legally speaking, we’ll see how that play out. But if the commissioners ask and they want to see that information, the commissioners, a commission of inquiry has great deal of power.  And I think that’s why I probably, why it might not be wise for B.S.I. also to make public statements because let the commissioners make the request and let’s see if they, maybe if they don’t ask for it, who knows? So making the statements might be mute if they ask for it and you don’t provide it. Then we’ll see how that plays out in a in a legal scenario as far as I am aware right now the commissioners have taken a very different approach. They want it to be as participatory as possible. So that they understand quite well a bit different than other commissions of inquiry. Nobody will be taken to court and be charged and so on. So they understand quite well that they are really only putting together concrete recommendations. It will then be for the government of the day, whether it is P.U.P. or U.D.P. or whoever, which P for them to make the final decision, cabinet to make policy decisions and the house to make legal changes to the act.”

 

The commission has a deadline of November thirtieth to complete its report.