Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning to im­me­di­ate­ly fire Hous­ing Min­is­ter Emi­ly Dick-Forde. She has al­so called for the im­me­di­ate re­moval of mem­bers of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) board. "I have said that the mat­ter in­volv­ing lands sold by NUGFW to Ude­cott was a mat­ter for the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion...It is now clear that the Uff Com­mis­sion agrees with me," she said. "The mem­bers of the board con­tin­ue to hold on to of­fice, de­spite the in­crim­i­nat­ing ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed in the re­port. "They must be fired now," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Her com­ments came as me­dia re­ports said that chair­man of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor and Ude­cott, Prof John Uff, QC, rec­om­mend­ed that a po­lice probe be con­duct­ed against for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Ude­cott Calder Hart and the en­tire board, in re­la­tion to the award of the $368 mil­lion Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs tow­er con­tract and the $885 mil­lion Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um project at Tarou­ba. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­port re­vealed "a sor­did tale of mis­man­age­ment, cor­rup­tion, sub­terfuge and cov­er-ups." ?

She said: "It is a most damn­ing state­ment of Man­ning and his Gov­ern­ment whose min­is­ters and board of di­rec­tors should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed." Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so called for the rec­om­men­da­tions of the re­port to be im­ple­ment­ed and for Hart to re­turn to T&T, as well as the mem­bers of the board should not be al­lowed to leave T&T. She said a spe­cial team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors should be ap­point­ed to ex­e­cute the rec­om­men­da­tions in the re­port when it came to crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is al­so call­ing for:

1. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to pro­vide the hu­man, phys­i­cal and tech­ni­cal re­sources to the po­lice to im­me­di­ate­ly be­gin their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, since re­ports em­a­nat­ing from in­side the Po­lice Ser­vice in­di­cate that they are be­ing frus­trat­ed in their work.

2. The Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to ex­am­ine the ev­i­dence col­lect­ed by the po­lice and to lay charges.

3. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to tell the na­tion what he knows about the where­abouts of Calder Hart.

4. The rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to seize the pass­ports of peo­ple who the Uff Com­mis­sion says should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

5. A re­view of the com­pa­nies and agen­cies now ex­empt from the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act in or­der to cre­ate trans­paren­cy and pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty.

6. Pub­li­ca­tion the re­port in all of the news­pa­pers so that all the cit­i­zens can read of the cor­rup­tion per­pe­trat­ed against them by the PNM Gov­ern­ment.