This kinda shit could only happen in T&T..... and it happened with all T&T past and present government. Why cant we get someone who really cares about our country and people... WHY !!!
MANNING DEFENDED UDECOTT, HART 45 TIMES
By Andre Bagoo Monday, March 8 2010
BEFORE CALDER Hart resigned as executive chairman in the wake of documents showing links between Hart and a company the Udecott board awarded $820 million in contracts, the Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Cabinet defended Hart and Udecott no less than forty-five times over the course of two years, all the while apparently taking no action to deal with allegations against Hart.
The figures reinforce concerns over the failure of Manning’s Government to address issues of corruption in private State companies, issues that were first raised in 2008 and then consistently stone-walled by the State right up to last week when Hart flew, on a one way ticket, to Ft Lauderdale, Florida, mere hours before his resignation was announced.
Checks done by Newsday disclose that Manning himself praised Hart in a personal capacity no less than four times, even after it was first alleged that Hart’s in-laws once sat as directors of Malaysian firm Sunway Construction Caribbean Limited, the firm that is at work on Udecott’s $820 million Ministry of Legal Affairs Towers in downtown Port-of-Spain.
The allegations dated back to May 23, 2008, when they were first raised by Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj in Parliament. Yet that did not stop Manning from praising Hart on April 8, 2009, almost a year later, when both men attended the opening of Udecott’s billion-dollar International Waterfront Centre on Dock Road, Port-of-Spain.
“I want to commend everyone on a job well done,” Manning said. “And of course you will forgive me my dear friends if I specially commend Udecott and Calder Hart, chairman, for the indefatigable efforts they have put in, not just on this project, but the so many others that are springing up all over Trinidad and Tobago.”
The Prime Minister, and Udecott line ministers Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde, the Planning Minister, and Minister of State Tina Gronlund-Nunez, were photographed raising glasses in a toast with Hart on that occasion.
Then, in Parliament on October 21, 2009, Manning defended Hart, casting him as a public official caught up in a battle between the Prime Minister and his detractors during debate on a bill to validate the proceedings of the Uff Commission of Inquiry.
Hitting out at what he called the “tyranny of the lynch mob” he said, “They want to get Calder Hart but let me tell you it is not Calder Hart. It is not Udecott. It is the Prime Minister and the Government that is what they are after!” While the ex-husband of Hart’s wife Sherrine, Carl Khan, had come forward five months earlier to corroborate Maharaj’s allegations, Manning said of those who took Khan’s allegations seriously, “They are not interested in the truth, they prefer to rely on the evidence of a jilted lover.”
This year, on January 7 in Parliament, the Prime Minister said Hart was of the calibre to be appointed to the Integrity Commission. “Don’t rule it out! Don’t rule it out!” he said in cross-talk with MPs.
At the opening of the National Academy for the Performing Arts in November last year, Manning hailed the Udecott chairman and noted, “Many can talk but few can build,” Manning said. “As the Bible says, by their deeds they shall be known.” He called the academy “a masterpiece owned by the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
But in addition to praising Hart, the Prime Minister has been consistent in his praise of Udecott as a corporation. He defended the company as he resisted calls for a Commission of Inquiry into its affairs in the wake of the sacking of his former Trade Minister Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley. Rowley had called for Cabinet oversight of Udecott and accountability.
After Rowley was fired under mysterious circumstances, Manning denied that Udecott was acting without adequate Cabinet oversight and also, at a post-Cabinet press briefing at Whitehall on April 24, 2008, denied that Udecott was building a 60-room hotel at the NAPA.
In the face of calls from Rowley — and a wide cross- section of civil society — for a Commission of Inquiry into Udecott, Manning resisted.
On May 9, 2008, he addressed calls for an inquiry by saying in Parliament, “Hurry dog eat raw meat. You have not heard the last word on that.” Days later, on May 12, 2008, he defended special purpose State enterprises like Udecott at a PNM breakfast meeting at the Crowne Plaza, Port-of-Spain, saying companies like Udecott were needed because of “public service bureaucracy”. Even when he announced a Joint Select Committee, and not an inquiry, in a special appearance in the Senate on May 13, 2008, Manning still described allegations against Udecott as “wild, reckless, uninformed statements” and failed to say if the Government had taken steps to investigate the allegations.
When, finally, the Prime Minister capitulated to the calls for an inquiry on May 23, 2008, after Maharaj made his allegations, he still defended Udecott.
“What the Government is trying to do — and it is not Udecott — is to change the established order in the construction sector through the special purpose State enterprise of Udecott. That is what we are trying to do. So, in terms of the policy that Udecott is pursuing, it is a Government policy, and what the Government is trying to do is to change the established order,” he said.
Even after Maharaj’s allegations were made, the Office of the Prime Minister, on July 18, 2008, revealed that the Prime Minister met with officials from Sunway, the same company linked with Hart. The announcement was taken by many as a tacit condoning, by the Prime Minister, of Udecott’s dealings with the company. Later, on October 3, 2008, Manning defended his meeting and confirmed that he had visited Sunway in Malaysia in the company of Dr Lenny Saith and Ken Julien “some time ago.”
During a motion of no-confidence against him on September 12, 2008, Manning again defended Udecott, arguing that criticisms levied against Udecott by the Opposition were designed to deprive the company of work. On August 25, 2009, Manning defended Udecott, characterising concerns over it thus, “The dispute that has erupted between Udecott and others is nothing more than an attempt by Udecott to bring about change.”
While the Prime Minister took the lead on beating down any attempts to question the propriety of what has transpired at one of this country’s most powerful State enterprises, his Cabinet members were equally vocal disciples of his Udecott worship.
On May 2, 2008, Dick-Forde said at the launch of a household survey that she was not aware of any problems with Udecott’s projects or irregularities with its tender procedures. On May 6, 2008, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Mariano Browne said at a Red House press conference, “I myself don’t have any specific difficulties with the issue of transparency at Udecott at this stage.”
At a Whitehall press briefing on May 8, 2008, Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert even questioned the need for a commission of inquiry, asking, “Why should there be a commission of inquiry into Udecott? And why should there be a forensic audit into Udecott?” He shot down calls for in inquiry, arguing that a Parliamentary Joint Select Committee (JSC) was more transparent than an inquiry. Browne, on May 16, 2008, supported this, arguing that a JSC was “more robust” than a commission of inquiry.
At a press conference at the Old Fire Station Building, Port-of-Spain, on May 19, Saith, Imbert, Dick-Forde and Information Minister Neil Parsanlal all down-played concerns over Udecott.
On June, 5, 2008, Imbert called Maharaj’s allegations “in the realm of speculation” and did not say if the Government would investigate them.
On May 14, 2008, the Udecott board broke its silence, arguing that the company was transparent and accountable, as the Government looked on. On May 21, 2008 board member and Independent Senator Michael Annisette called for a JSC.
But days later, the Government appeared to make an about turn, appointing an inquiry, however, Manning named former Integrity Commission chairman Gordon Deane as chairman, notwithstanding his role in the Keith Rowley Landate affair.
As the Government came under further attack, the Cabinet went on the offensive. On June 9, 2008, Browne argued that Udecott’s critics were people acting in “self interest”. Even when Imbert named a new chairman to the inquiry, Professor John Uff, he said allegations against Udecott “will lead to further misinformation in the public domain.”
Amidst this steady stream of Udecott backing, the Government quietly continued to award new work to Udecott, especially under Health Minister Jerry Narace.
As if she sensed the need to justify this, and to justify the failure of Udecott to address allegations against it as it had promised it would, Dick-Forde said at a post-Cabinet press briefing at Whitehall, “We have to wait until Udecott is ready...I don’t see governance requires that I tell them what to do.”
Days after the Government announced the full line-up for the inquiry, Dick-Forde said of Udecott’s critics in Parliament on September 12, 2008, “I don’t know if it’s tabanca they have, that’s why they are attacking Udecott.”
The “tabanca” was so bad that Government senators on September 23, 2008, were driven to protecting Hart in the Senate from allegations made by Senator Wade Mark. After he claimed Hart got a cash payment of $27 million on the eve of the 2007 General Election, Government senators, including Hazel Manning and Conrad Enill, voted against extending Mark’s speaking time. That same day, in a written answer to a Parliamentary question, Dick-Forde refused to disclose the contract for the billion-dollar Waterfront project due to a “confidentiality provision.”
Days later, on September 29, 2008, she said, “Udecott has been under full fire for nearly the full year that I have been the minister and despite this my experience remains that Udecott remains among the best performing agencies in the Government.”
The Cabinet provoked further uproar when, in February 2009, it emerged that it had refused to approve fees for the commission of inquiry’s forensic expert Scotsman Gerry McCaffrey.
The proceedings of the commission had by then gotten under way, but there were signs that the State was failing to reign in lawyers working for State enterprises who appeared to have been frustrating the inquiry.
On August 27, 2009, Imbert denied that Udecott was trying to derail the inquiry, even as the company was preparing a series of court challenges against the commissioners. The Udecott board, amidst these legal moves insisted on their legal rights. At the same time, on October 6, 2009, National Security Minister Martin Joseph told the Senate that companies like Udecott would not be captured under new proceeds of crime legislation.
By October 15, 2009, Dick-Forde was once more on the defensive, this time saying, “There is absolutely no evidence that the head of Sunway is the brother- in-law of Calder Hart...I have met various directors of Sunway and I am certain that none of them are the brother-in-law of Calder Hart.”
The minister appeared to have not had at her disposal the public documents which appear to now demonstrate otherwise and which emerged last week.
But most notably, through the entire saga, the Government has made a point of attacking Rowley in the wake of him first raising the Udecott issue.
In addition to allegations of missing millions at the Cleaver Heights housing project in Arima, Manning has attacked Rowley on a personal level. In Parliament on October 22, 2009, as he defended Hart once more, he threw barbs at Rowley. He called him, in mafia Italian, “capo di tutti cappi” or “boss of all bosses”.
But the real boss was the Udecott boss, himself apparently bosom buddies with the boss of all bosses at the Office of the Prime Minister.
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