DIEGO Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley has denied claims by Chaguanas East MP Mustapha Abdul-Hamid that he escorted UDeCOTT executive chairman, Calder Hart, to his wife’s land in Tobago for Hart to make a purchase, saying it is as 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, not once, far less twice or any other time,’ Rowley told the media during debate in Parliament on the bill which sought to validate the proceedings and record of proceedings of the Commission of Enquiry into UdeCOTT and the construction sector. He said that on one occasion in his capacity as Planning Minister, and Hart as head of UDeCOTT, they stopped at Rowley’s home in Mason Hall while en route to a UDeCOTT project in Castara, Tobago.

Rowley recalled that Hart was able to see his wife’s project in the distance and said that he would be interested in it upon completion. He said that sometime later on, unbeknownst to him, Hart communicated with his wife about purchasing a piece of land and asked her to send him a document on the property and she did, ’and that was the end of it’.

Abdul-Hamid also slammed Rowley as a ’hypocrite’ because after all these years, he has only now made public the allegations of bid rigging by UDeCOTT that he had informed the Prime Minister of back in 2003. Rowley, however, said weeks after he informed the Prime Minister of this, he was offered the portfolio of Gender Affairs and UDeCOTT was removed from his purview. He also pointed out that Manning never addressed or denied this issue in his response, nor did he or the other Government Ministers who spoke during the entire debate share the public’s concern about the revelations he had made coming out of the Commission of Enquiry.

’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.’

Manning, in his contribution, described Rowley as an ’out of control’ person, a personality change he had noticed since 1996 and had to ’live with’ for 12 years, noting this was evident in Rowley’s contribution on Monday. The Prime Minister also said Rowley was showing ’hate’ and ’bitterness’ while the PNM espoused love.

In response to this, Rowley said he has held various portfolios and this was the first time he was hearing of these issues, adding the people he has worked with should be questioned about his behaviour.

’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.

Abdul-Hamid also said yesterday that Rowley harboured aspirations to be Prime Minister and to hold portfolios, but Rowley said he had resigned the deputy leadership of the PNM and Abdul-Hamid was possibly having a ’Freudian slip’ (expressing his own desires).

On the Prime Minister’s quoting of the Bible during his contribution, Rowley said that being a Christian, Methodist by baptism and 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’.