?Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has raised con­cerns about the con­ver­sa­tion that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning en­gaged Calder Hart in be­fore Hart re­signed from the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott). "Ad­mit­ting that such a dis­cus­sion took place, Mr Man­ning blunt­ly re­fused to di­vulge the na­ture of this con­ver­sa­tion, say­ing that it was of no con­se­quence and un­nec­es­sary," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "Giv­en the fact that our Prime Min­is­ter knew that Mr Hart was the sub­ject of a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in light of the ev­i­dence which re­cent­ly be­came pub­lic that seemed to in­crim­i­nate the for­mer Ude­cott chair­man, he could not ex­pect to have a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion with Mr Hart and with­hold the de­tails of that di­a­logue."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on Man­ning to di­vulge the con­tents of his dis­cus­sions with Hart. "Asked whether dur­ing the dis­cus­sion Mr Man­ning knew Calder Hart would fly out of the coun­try he said no. Could Mr Hart have cho­sen to quick­ly de­part these shores af­ter hear­ing from the Prime Min­is­ter?" Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked. "In­ter­est­ing­ly enough it was not the line min­is­ter, Ms Dick Forde who spoke to Calder Hart, it was the Prime Min­is­ter," she said.