Embattled Canadian quits top TT post

Following a call for his resignation by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, the Canadian-born executive chairman of Trinidad and Tobago’s Urban Develepment Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) Calder Hart resigned on Saturday with immediate effect.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Hart also announced that he had tendered his resignation with respect to all State boards to which he has been appointed including NIB, TTMF, NIPDEC and HMB.

Following his resignation, Hart, his wife Sherrine and young daughter left the country via Caribbean Airlines for Ft Lauderdale, Florida, where the Harts reportedly recently bought a US$5 million condominium.

In the wake of Hart’s departure, Prime Minister Patrick Manning offered no comments, but himself left the country for London on Saturday to attend Commonwealth Day celebrations on Sunday. Manning Is the current chairman of the Commonwealth.

The Prime Minister, as head of the Cabinet, has the power to hire and fire the chairman of any State board so a request from Hart to resign is tantamount to a directive.

The Prime Minister, who has ignored calls to remove Hart in the past and whose government, as late as Friday, refused to debate the very same issue - that is, Hart’s removal from all State boards - as a matter of urgent public importance, made a complete about-turn and on Friday afternoon called on Hart to resign, the Express newspaper reported.

The paper quoted sources as saying the cr who was not in the Parliament on Friday at the time that the motion was presented, did not endorse the position adopted by the Government side in not supporting the call to debate the Opposition Leader motion.

These nevw developments came at a time when the Trinidad courts ruled to allow the publication of the report of the Commission of Enquiry into UDeCOTT and also coincided with a growing public concern following the release of startling documentary evidence confirming a family link between Hart and a company, CH Development, which won a $368.9 million contract from UDeCOTT.

The opposition party, the Congress of the People (COP), produced birth certificates and other documents it obtained in Malaysia to prove that Hart’s wife was connected to CH Development (which later became Sunway Caribbean) through family ties – her brother and a brother-in-law are reportedly directors of the company which was granted over TT$800 million in contracts by UdeCOTT under Calder Hart’s chairmanship.

Last week, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the presentation of “incontroversible documentary evidence..in the public domain confiming the family relationship of Hart to two persons in whom the ownershp and control of CH Development and Construction was vested, at a time when UDeCOTT awarded the contract for the construction of the Ministry of Legal Affairs Towers, at a price which was more than $60 million higher than that of the lowest bidder.”

Manning has come under sustained fire for his defense of Hart and UdeCott in the wake of the allegations against the Canadian and the privately run state company. The Newsday newspaper reported that in the last 2 years, Manning defended Hart 45 times, and sung his praises even in the wake of expose after expose alleging that there might have been corruption in the process used by UdeCott in the awarding of some of its contracts.

On Monday, the remaining members of the UdeCOTT board stood firm, refusing calls for their resignation, saying they had nothing to resign over.

The COP said it has forwarded its documents on Hart to the acting Commission of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions for their investigations.