By Andre Bagoo Thursday, March 4 2010

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FRESH DOCUMENTS which appear to conclusively tie Udecott executive chairman Calder Hart to a company his board awarded $820 million worth in contracts emerged yesterday after being obtained by the Congress of the People (COP).

The documents — copies of birth and marriage certificates — link Hart’s wife Sherrine, to Malaysian firm Sunway Construction Caribbean Limited, the company at work on the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower in downtown Port-of-Spain. The documents were obtained from Malaysian officials by the political party which yesterday forwarded them to the Offices of the Commissioner of Police and Director of Public Prosecutions.

The documents, which were obtained by the COP after a two-month investigation done in collaboration with lawyers in Malaysia, disclose that Mrs Hart’s sister is Lee Soeh Chin (who is said to also be called Adeline Lee).

Lee’s husband Ng Chin Poh (also known as David Ng Chin Poh) was a director of Sunway.

According to two birth certificates, Mrs Hart and Lee share the same father: Lee Fook Piu. The documents list the mother of Mrs Hart as Wong Ah Moi and Lee’s mother as Wai Ah Moi.

Lee’s marriage certificate shows she married Ng Chin Poh in March 1996.

The same document lists Lee Hup Seng, another Sunway director who is said to be Mrs Hart’s brother, as a witness to the marriage ceremony in Malaysia.

COP political leader Winston Dookeran yesterday called on the organs of the State, and the State’s highest office-holder President George Maxwell Richards, to immediately take action based on the documents.

“The protection and the veil that have been placed on this issue have now been removed by the new information,” he said. “If the integrity of the system of law and order is to be kept intact the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Commissioner of Police must establish clearly a forensic investigation on this matter.”

“Since the matter also affects the Integrity in Public Life Act, it reveals the price that this society is paying by the delay in the appointment of a commission,” he added. Dookeran yesterday despatched a letter to Richards calling on him to complete the appointment process for the commission which is the ethics watchdog for public officials like Hart.

The COP documents appear to corroborate the sworn written testimony of Mrs Hart’s ex-husband, businessman Carl Khan who in three sworn statutory declarations had deposed that Mrs Hart had family ties to Sunway. Those declarations were filed in the Uff Commission of Inquiry which has been the subject of several court challenges by the Udecott board, under Hart.

A court judgment by High Court Justice Mira Dean Armorer into one such challenge is due tomorrow.

A fax trail which linked Calder Hart’s private address at 6 De Lima Road Cascade to Sunway also emerged during the proceedings of the Uff inquiry. But to date, Hart has never addressed the issue of family links between his wife and Sunway which, via a holding company CH Development Limited, was awarded the $368 million Legal Affairs Tower in 2005 mere days after being incorporated.

Sunway was last year awarded the $300 million contract for the fit-out of the building, despite the emergence of evidence of links between Hart and the firm.

Documents filed by Udecott last year in the Uff inquiry later showed that the total cost of the Legal Affairs project is likely to come in at about $820 million due to “adjustment” for package allocations; costs for extensions of time; adjustments on profit and attendances on nominated sub-contractors; project variations; designer’s provisional sums; external work elements and residual day-works and contingencies.

Hart has denied “family connections” to Sunway in written testimony before the commission, but has never responded to reporters’ questions on the issue. His lawyers had also issued blanket denials of the links.

Just last month, Hart’s attorney’s Frank Solomon SC and Devesh Maharaj of Mansfield Chambers filed closing submissions on behalf of Hart in which they attacked claims that Mrs Hart was linked to Sunway.

The lawyers called the evidence against Hart an attempt “to ambush” him and argued that it was “of scant probative value and obviously contrived with the principal, if not sole, intention to bring Mr Hart’s wife into disrepute.”

“There may be truth in these claims or they may be total fabrications or the truth of the matter may lie anywhere between these two poles,” attorneys Solomon and Maharaj wrote. They criticised the claims of Khan saying he needed documentary proof to substantiate his claims.

“Proof of marriage in law requires the production of of at least a certified marriage certificate…family relations are to be proved according to the laws relating to pedigree,” they noted. In any event they defended Hart, saying, “Mr Calder Hart is a complete stranger to all these claims, which, if they took place at all, would have taken place long before Mr Hart knew or had any relationship with the ex-wife of Mr Khan and no one had suggested that this is not so.”