Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning says he is not giv­ing in­ter­views to the me­dia, in wake of re­ports by ar­chi­tect Stephen Mendes that Man­ning was per­son­al­ly in­volved in the com­mis­sion­ing of the con­tro­ver­sial Gua­napo Church project. Man­ning spoke briefly with me­dia per­son­nel, who wait­ed out­side his home at Sumadh Gar­dens, Vista­bel­la, yes­ter­day, with the hope of get­ting an in­ter­view. A Guard and Emer­gency Branch po­lice of­fi­cer, sta­tioned at Man­ning's home, said the San Fer­nan­do East MP was not see­ing any mem­bers of the me­dia. The of­fi­cer said Man­ning had vis­i­tors and was busy. Just af­ter mid­day, Man­ning's son Bri­an pulled up in a black Pra­do. He ex­tend­ed cour­te­sies to the me­dia be­fore speak­ing with the guard who opened the au­to­mat­ic gate to al­low him in­side.

Bri­an agreed to tell his fa­ther that mem­bers of the me­dia want­ed to speak with him. A few min­utes lat­er, Man­ning Sr looked out of the win­dow. He trot­ted down the stairs wear­ing a grim face, kha­ki shorts and a pat­terned shirt. Af­ter shak­ing every­one's hands, Man­ning said:

"Folks, I am in my house. I am not in­ter­fer­ing with any­body, and there is no need for you to be here." Asked how he was spend­ing his days since the May 24 polls, Man­ning said: "I am not giv­ing any in­ter­views to the me­dia at this time." Pressed fur­ther, Man­ning added: "I have just come out­side to wish you all well and to tell you all to en­joy the rest of your af­ter­noon." He then smiled and turned away. As re­porters threw more ques­tions at Man­ning, he re­spond­ed firm­ly say­ing: "I wish you all well, folks. En­joy the rest of your day."

On Sat­ur­day, Man­ning al­so de­clined in­ter­views with the press. He has yet to break his si­lence on the is­sue. Nine days be­fore the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tions, cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar held a news con­fer­ence show­ing doc­u­ments which pur­port­ed­ly linked Man­ning di­rect­ly to the Gua­napo Heights project. One of the doc­u­ments was a May 2 let­ter writ­ten by ar­chi­tect Mendes to for­mer Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man Calder Hart. In the let­ter, Mendes re­ferred to Patrick Man­ning as PM. He lat­er stat­ed in a signed state­ment that the "PM" re­ferred to Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

Man­ning had ini­tial­ly stat­ed that Mendes might have meant project man­ag­er when he re­ferred to PM.