Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment's an­nounce­ment of a crim­i­nal probe re­gard­ing Ude­cott rais­es ques­tions about the Prime Min­is­ter's knowl­edge of and com­pli­ance with it, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day.

"It is not enough to ex­tin­guish the rag­ing fire and it is a case of try­ing to bolt the door long af­ter the horse has run away with the tro­phy in­tact," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added of the probe. She was com­ment­ing on state­ments by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie that a crim­i­nal probe was launched in Sep­tem­ber re­gard­ing Ude­cott. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a state­ment, added: "The shock­ing, bizarre and sud­den an­nounce­ment by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie that a crim­i­nal probe was launched in­to Calder Hart, for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Ude­cott, since last Sep­tem­ber has raised even more ques­tions about the Prime Min­is­ter's knowl­edge of and com­pli­ance with the whole sor­did mat­ter. She asked: "If in­deed Mr Je­re­mie had ad­vised Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning about the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, wouldn't/shouldn't the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter be more pru­dent and guard­ed about pub­lic pro­nounce­ments on Mr Hart, re­gard­ing the pro­pri­ety and in­tegri­ty of his (Hart's) stew­ard­ship of Ude­cott? "Why would the Prime Min­is­ter re­peat­ed­ly con­tin­ue to stout­ly de­fend and praise Calder Hart if know­ing a crim­i­nal probe was se­cret­ly in place? "Is it that he hoped to in­flu­ence the out­come of the probe some­how or that he sim­ply did not care who said or proved what, his sup­port for Calder Hart would re­main un­con­di­tion­al?"

She added: "Some have even ven­tured to spec­u­late whether Mr Hart has some­thing on Mr Man­ning since none of this oth­er­wise makes any sense, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the fact that for­mer Min­is­ter of Hous­ing, Kei­th Row­ley, the ear­ly whistle­blow­er on cor­rup­tion with­in his Gov­ern­ment, was dis­missed from the Cab­i­net. "The state­ment, there­fore, by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on his po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter is made with­out any re­gard to the fact that the pub­lic will be out­raged to learn that de­spite Mr Man­ning be­ing privy to in­for­ma­tion about a crim­i­nal probe on Mr Hart since Sep­tem­ber of last year, he still stood in sup­port and praise of him." Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so took is­sue with state­ments by Plan­ning Min­is­ter Emi­ly Dick-Forde. She said: "More­over, we have the de­plorable spec­ta­cle of the line min­is­ter for Ude­cott, Ms Emi­ly Dick-Forde, con­demn­ing any and every­one who dared to call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Mr Hart and preach­ing that our na­tion has lost its soul for so do­ing and should be ashamed for what she de­scribes as 'hound­ing' Calder Hart.

"What plan­et is this min­is­ter from?" she asked. Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "The shame is on you Ms Min­is­ter. You have con­duct­ed your­self in the most high- hand­ed and ir­re­spon­si­ble man­ner that sad­ly now typ­i­fies the style of the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion."