Clearcase provider status keeps displaying "Can't load the scm provider. You need to define a connectionUrl parameter" but connection node is defined.

POM has been defined correctly:
<project>
......
<scm>
<connection>scm|clearcase|c:\views\tempview\configSpec.txt</connection>
<developerConnection>scm|clearcase|c:\views\tempview\configSpec.txt</developerConnection>
</scm>
......
</project>

Plugin configuration points to "connection". When doing a 'mvn scm:status' keeps telling me "Can't load the scm provider. You need to define a connectionUrl parameter". However I am pointing to a valid configSpec('mvn scm:validate' = success) and connection is defined as shown above.

ConfigSpec (for completeness) is:
element * CHECKEDOUT
element -dir * /main/LATEST
element * /main/release_1.0/tempview/LATEST
element * /main/release_1.0/LATEST -mkbranch ac42144_r1.0_t0001
element * /main/R1.0 -mkbranch release_1.0
element * /main/

-mkbranch release_1.0
load c:\views\tempview\WCSF\CustomerService

Cannot do anything with plugin currently because message prevents code from being checked out.