Gail Alexan­der

Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert has ad­vised his fel­low PNM MP Kei­th Row­ley to en­gage in some in­tro­spec­tion since Row­ley was too close to some of the con­trac­tors in the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to Ude­cott and the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor and is be­ing "fed false in­for­ma­tion."

Im­bert said: "He has lost ob­jec­tiv­i­ty...my col­league from Diego Mar­tin West is com­ing in­to this Par­lia­ment and mak­ing state­ments that are eas­i­ly dis­prove." Row­ley was not present to hear Im­bert's ad­vice dur­ing yes­ter­day's Low­er House de­bate on a bill to val­i­date the Uff in­quiry. Row­ley ar­rived late. Im­bert's com­ments fol­lowed Row­ley's fiery con­tri­bu­tion on the is­sue in the House on Mon­day when he at­tacked Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning on Ude­cott, mak­ing sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions. He said yes­ter­day he was tak­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to set the record straight. He said Row­ley was in­cor­rect when he al­leged Man­ning had mis­rep­re­sent­ed facts about the cost of a force­main item in the Cleaver Heights Hous­ing Project. Im­bert read from NH In­ter­na­tion­al 2008 in­voice, show­ing that Man­ning was cor­rect when he had stat­ed the item was billed as $6.1 mil­lion. Im­bert not­ed Man­ning had said it was im­pos­si­ble for a force­main to cost $6 mil­lion.

On Row­ley's claim that Man­ning had mis­rep­re­sent­ed the facts, Im­bert said: "I think the op­po­site might be true–the facts show the item was $6 mil­lion." On Row­ley's al­le­ga­tions about Home Mort­gage Bank (HMB) chair­man Calder Hart and a $170 mil­lion loan to fi­nance the NUGFW hous­ing project, Im­bert point­ed out Hart on­ly be­came HMB chair­man in late 2008 and the HMB chair­man at the time of the loan in ques­tion was An­dre Mon­teil. Im­bert said Row­ley's al­le­ga­tion on that al­so was in­ac­cu­rate. He said the loan for the project of $134 mil­lion was VAT ex­clu­sive. Al­so added to the fig­ure were le­gal fees and du­ties–all of which would have in­creased the fig­ure to $170 mil­lion, Im­bert added. "So it was not a case of him­self un­to him­self," he said.

He said it was the UNC Gov­ern­ment which had signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment on May 21, 1999, for the Per­form­ing Arts Acad­e­mies. Im­bert ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of wrong­ly and se­lec­tive­ly urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­fere with cer­tain of­fices and pres­sur­ing the DPP and po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate and charge peo­ple in the Ude­cott is­sue with un­proven al­le­ga­tions. He said Gov­ern­ment was not go­ing to in­ter­fere with agen­cies. "To­day is Calder Hart, to­mor­row is you. If you want us to do that fine, but it sets the stage for an­ar­chy and a po­lice state. It can't be one rule for Pe­ter and one rule for Paul. We'll let the (Uff) in­quiry do its work," Im­bert added. He said the in­quiry's web­site was open to all, in­clud­ing the DPP and po­lice, who could study it if they want­ed.