Richard Lord

In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal has de­scribed the Calder Hart/Ude­cott is­sue as an im­broglio.

Parsan­lal said the Gov­ern­ment was very con­cerned about the amount of anger pre­vail­ing among the pop­u­la­tion be­cause of the is­sue. Hart, the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the state-owned spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny, Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), re­signed last Sat­ur­day. Doc­u­ments pro­duced by the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) claimed he had fam­i­ly ties with two di­rec­tors of Sun­way–a firm which was award­ed a $368.9 mil­lion con­tract to con­struct the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­ers in Port-of-Spain by Ude­cott. Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on the is­sue dur­ing yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann's, Parsan­lal ad­mit­ted: "There are lots of peo­ple out there who have viewed the whole im­broglio with Ude­cott and Calder Hart and have be­come very, very an­gry, have be­come very up­set and con­cerned about the op­er­a­tions of the Gov­ern­ment and we are very much aware of that."

Parsan­lal said the Gov­ern­ment and mem­bers of the PNM were very con­cerned about those de­vel­op­ments. "Yes, we feel that there has been anger in the pop­u­la­tion," Parsan­lal said. Not­ing that both a po­lice and foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been ini­ti­at­ed in­to Calder Hart/Ude­cott, Parsan­lal said cit­i­zens should not seek to pre­judge the sit­u­a­tion. He said the process should be al­lowed to run its full course and when com­plet­ed, "who­ev­er has to be vin­di­cat­ed will be vin­di­cat­ed, if any­one has to be charged, then that per­son will be charged." The news con­fer­ence was at times heat­ed, as jour­nal­ists at­tempt­ed to ask ques­tions on the is­sue at the same time. In re­sponse to ques­tions, Parsan­lal said Cab­i­net did not dis­cuss the hold­ing of a probe in­to Hart. He said, how­ev­er, that the gen­er­al is­sue over Hart was dis­cussed.

In re­sponse to ques­tions about the de­layed an­nounce­ment of a Hart probe, both Parsan­lal and Labour Min­is­ter Ren­nie Du­mas said it was not the norm to an­nounce such mat­ters. "In no sit­u­a­tion at the cab­i­net ta­ble would an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al come and say that we are run­ning an in­ves­ti­ga­tion on 'A', 'Y' or 'Z'," Du­mas said. "Any oth­er course of ac­tion leaves us bare to the charge of pre­sump­tion." Asked if the Gov­ern­ment had any grat­i­tude for Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley for his role in rais­ing con­cerns about Hart and Ude­cott, Parsan­lal said like all MPs who took their oath of of­fice, Row­ley was sim­ply car­ry­ing out that oath.