By Clint Chan Tack Wednesday, October 7 2009

PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning must “terminate his silence” and show Udecott who is the boss. Manning must also fire Udecott’s board of directors, its line minister Dr Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde and allow the Uff Commission of Inquiry to complete its work.

This was UNC deputy leader Wade Mark’s response yesterday to a meeting between Attorney General (AG) John Jeremie and Udecott executive chairman Calder Hart on Monday at which Jeremie instructed Hart to return to court and withdraw a consent order which halted the Uff inquiry. On the same day, Udecott’s board of directors declared they were not resigning.

Speaking with reporters during the lunch break in the Senate, Mark said: “If the AG is about that particular course of action which is in the interest of the people, then obviously the AG should proceed. If that is so, the population welcomes it.”

He reiterated the Opposition wants the commission’s report to be submitted to President George Maxwell Richards, laid in Parliament and sent to the relevant authorities for action.

However, Mark remained skeptical that this would happen. “This thing is a very dirty game that is being played out here. The credibility of all the players are suspect,” he said. Mark said Jeremie met last week with Udecott’s lawyers who gave him certain commitments and “they have not carried out those commitments.”

He referred to a report in Newsday last Tuesday in which Dick-Forde, the Planning and Development Minister, said Udecott’s legal action was not in conflict with Government’s efforts to validate the commission’s work.

Mark said if Dick-Forde had prior knowledge of Udecott’s action, she should “resign and go home.”

“You cannot have Udecott’s board of directors just unilaterally taking action against the State, taking action against the people and taking action against the Uff commission without getting a directive from the line minister,” he declared.

Mark said it was time for Manning “who appears to be experiencing a deafening silence in this whole scenario, to tell the country his whole role in this matter.”

“Why is it that the Prime Minister has continued to remain silent in the face of such a national scandal which is making our country look like a real banana republic? Why is the Prime Minister not taking direct action in order to bring this matter to a close? All the Prime Minister has to do is to fire the Udecott board and he has the power to do it,” Mark declared.

He wondered if the reason why Manning has not publicly intervened in the entire Udecott fiasco is because Hart “is holding secrets for him.”