?Sev­er­al weeks af­ter a crim­i­nal probe was start­ed in­to al­le­ga­tions of wrong-do­ing by for­mer Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) Calder Hart, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning re­mained high in praise for the then Ude­cott head.

AG John Je­re­mie said on Wednes­day the crim­i­nal probe be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 21 and al­most two months lat­er Man­ning com­mend­ed Hart "for the tremen­dous work he con­tin­ues to do to de­vel­op T&T." Man­ning said at the of­fi­cial open­ing of the US$78 mil­lion Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (North Cam­pus) in Port-of- Spain last No­vem­ber that the Calder Hart-led spe­cial pur­pos­es com­pa­ny "is the in­stru­ment that the Gov­ern­ment is us­ing to bring about a new or­der in the con­struc­tion sec­tor."

He made those com­ments against sev­er­al claims of mis­man­age­ment of state re­sources by Hart. The Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor and Ude­cott was still tak­ing place in Port-of-Spain. Man­ning added: "The Gov­ern­ment re­fus­es to be a part of the witch hunt." Je­re­mie said on Wednes­day PM Man­ning and him­self were aware of the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion which was launched in Sep­tem­ber last year.

In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal, in re­spond­ing to ques­tions of Man­ning's pub­lic sup­port for Hart in the wake on an on-go­ing crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, said Hart had not as yet been charged with any­thing and the Gov­ern­ment was await­ing the re­port of the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor.