JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

?Jear­lean John takes over Ude­cott...

PM: Hart not guilty

by

20100312

Min­utes af­ter say­ing for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Ude­cott) Calder Hart was not guilty of any­thing, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning an­nounced the ap­point­ment of Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, Jear­lean John as the new chair­man of Ude­cott, re­plac­ing Hart, who re­signed last week. Man­ning told a hasti­ly-arranged news con­fer­ence at his St Clair of­fice yes­ter­day that de­spite the many al­le­ga­tions against Hart, the for­mer Ude­cott boss was not guilty of any­thing. He took ques­tions on the is­sue in­volv­ing Hart, who re­signed from Ude­cott last week af­ter pub­li­ca­tion which claimed that Hart was re­lat­ed to two di­rec­tors of CH De­vel­op­ment (now Sun­way)–a com­pa­ny which was award­ed a $368.9 mil­lion con­tract by Ude­cott to con­struct the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­ers. Hart de­nied while on oath in the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor that he was re­lat­ed to the of­fi­cials.

Man­ning said he was told by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie last Fri­day that Hart may have a case to an­swer. He said he sub­se­quent­ly met with Hart, who then ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion. Man­ning said for that rea­son and al­so be­cause of cer­tain pub­lic dis­clo­sures, he had a con­ver­sa­tion with Hart. "Fol­low­ing that con­ver­sa­tion with Mr Hart, he de­cid­ed that the best thing to do in all the cir­cum­stances would be to step away, al­low the in­ves­ti­ga­tions to go on and to give him a chance, at the ap­pro­pri­ate time, to clear his name, which I imag­ine he is now in the process of seek­ing to do," the Prime Min­is­ter said. The PM said it was not nec­es­sary to ask Hart to re­sign. Man­ning was asked if he felt Hart was hound­ed out of of­fice, a claim made by Plan­ning, Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Emi­ly Dick Forde.

He re­spond­ed quick­ly: "You don't have to be a rock­et sci­en­tist to see what has hap­pened. When I read the news­pa­pers, some­times I won­der what is the crime? I would like some­body to tell me of what is Mr Hart guilty as of now? Would some­body be kind enough to tell me? He is guilty of what? I would like to know right now. The PM said it was not for him to de­ter­mine in­no­cence or guilt in the mat­ter in­volv­ing Hart. He said the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to es­tab­lish a new or­der in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, via Ude­cott. "In that ca­pac­i­ty (ob­jec­tive) Ude­cott has stepped on the toes and corns of some very pow­er­ful peo­ple in this coun­try," he said. Man­ning said the Gov­ern­ment un­der­stands that "the bat­tle is not al­ways what it ap­pears to be but there may well be oth­er agen­das in this mat­ter." He said he was not get­ting val­ue for mon­ey from the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor.

Man­ning con­firmed that he was aware of the crim­i­nal probe be­ing con­duct­ed on Hart by foren­sic ac­coun­tant Robert Lindquist, since Sep­tem­ber last year. He said such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which was com­mis­sioned by AG Je­re­mie "was a rou­tine thing." Asked why he con­tin­ued to speak favourably about Hart in pub­lic de­spite the fact that he was aware of a probe, Man­ning said it would be a ma­jor er­ror to ac­cept that some­one was guilty be­fore it was proven by the au­thor­i­ties. "I was ac­knowl­edg­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of Mr Hart in terms of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment," Man­ning said. "The state­ments which I made are state­ments by which I stand," the PM said. Man­ning said the en­tire mat­ter in­volv­ing Hart was not over and it may not be the ap­pro­pri­ate time for any­one to claim vic­to­ry.

He was re­spond­ing to claims that cit­i­zens may now feel that sacked trade min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley should feel ex­on­er­at­ed be­cause of the lat­est de­vel­op­ments with Hart. Row­ley had said he was fired be­cause of his call for Cab­i­net over­sight for Ude­cott. Man­ning re­spond­ed: "Well if that is the view of the pub­lic, that is the pub­lic's view. But let's see, re­mem­ber what I have said be­fore, one has to await the evening in or­der to de­ter­mine how splen­did the day has been, it's not evening yet."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored