Rowley denies trying to make deal with Calder Hart

It's a lie!

That was the response from Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley to allegations made Wednesday by Chaguanas East MP Mustapha Abdul-Hamid that Rowley took UDeCOTT executive chairman, Calder Hart, to his wife's real estate development in Tobago to do a deal.

The former cabinet minister said it's an "unadulterated lie" and part of the "character assassination" against him led by Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

"I have never been on my wife's project with Calder Hart," Rowley told reporters. He explained that on one occasion when he was Planning Minister he and the UDeCOTT chief stopped at Rowley's home in Mason Hall, Tobago.

He said they were on official business going to a UDeCOTT project in Castara. Rowley said Hart was able to see his wife's real estate project in the distance and said that he would be interested in it upon completion.

He said Hart later contacted his wife, Sharon, about buying a piece of land and asked her to send him a document on the property, which she did.

Abdul-Hamid also called Rowley a "hypocrite" for remaining silent about allegations of bid rigging by UDeCOTT and only now speaking publicly about it.

Rowley explained that shortly after he brought the matter to the prime minister's attention Manning removed UDeCOTT from his purview. And he said neither Manning nor other cabinet members denied the problem.

"While the Prime Minister spent all his time trying to psychoanalyse me, he responded to none, not a single one of the substantive issues that I raised with respect to the conduct of State business," Rowley said.

Commenting on Manning's biblical references about love, Rowley said, "The Prime Minister was talking love and advising me on the cathartic effect of love, and what does he do in the next breath, slander me again for the 'nth' time for being in the pocket of some contractor."

Rowley said that being a Christian, a Methodist by baptism, and a person who has grown up in the Seventh Day Adventist church, "one of the things commonly accepted by Christians is Satan has a way of quoting scripture to suit his purpose".