Rodney COI report dropped off to AG’s Secretary; Williams says move ‘disrespectful’

The final report from the Commissioners on the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (COI) was dropped off to the Confidential Secretary of the Attorney General Basil Williams.

Williams on Wednesday afternoon confirmed that the document was dropped off in a “disrespectful” manner.

Reports indicate that shortly after dropping off the report, the three Commissioners proceeded to leave the Guyana.

Williams confirmed that the Commissioners would have requested additional payment in the form of a “writing fee” for completing this report; however this request has puzzled the government.

“In any inquiry, the end of such inquiry is culminated by the presentation of a report. That can only be done only after it has been written up, that should have been included in the fees charged. So we don’t know about a separate writing fee when it is subsumed in any remit of any inquiry that they have to write up the report and hand it over,” Williams stated.

Over the pass months the Chairman Sir Richard Cheltenham has asked for several extensions as they were unable to complete the report into the Inquiry that was billed at $500M.

After the Commissioners failed to present the report to the President on Monday citing a lack of ink, Williams had declared that he is “fed up with the entire situation.”

“I was at a meeting with the Prime Minister at the Ministry of the Presidency this morning when I received a call from Sir Richard and he told me that he would be unable to make the 12 o’ clock time for presentation. And he was unable to do so because they were printing the document, and he ran out of ink and I did not understand what he meant,” said the Attorney General.