As its ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Calder Hart ruled over the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T.

That is, un­til March 2010, when he re­signed sud­den­ly in the midst of doc­u­ments link­ing him and a com­pa­ny the Ude­cott board award­ed $820 mil­lion in con­tracts. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter his un­ex­pect­ed res­ig­na­tion, Hart, his wife and daugh­ter took a flight to Ft Laud­erdale, Flori­da. It was ini­tial­ly al­leged that Hart's in-laws once sat as di­rec­tors of Malaysian firm Sun­way Con­struc­tion Caribbean Ltd, which worked on Ude­cott's $820 mil­lion Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­ers, which is part of the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza. That build­ing re­mains in­com­plete and un­oc­cu­pied.

Cana­da-born Hart was the blue-eyed boy of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who praised and de­fend­ed him no less than 45 times over two years. The al­le­ga­tions against Hart were first made by for­mer Tabaquite rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ramesh Lawrence in Par­lia­ment on May 23, 2008. At the open­ing of the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad ho­tel on April 8, 2009, Man­ning said: "I want to com­mend every­one on a job well done," Man­ning said. "And, of course, you will for­give me, my dear friends, if I spe­cial­ly com­mend Ude­cott and Calder Hart, chair­man, for the in­de­fati­ga­ble ef­forts they have put in, not just on this project, but the so many oth­ers that are spring­ing up all over T&T." Hart was then the toast of the town. Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Oc­to­ber 21, 2009, Man­ning, in de­fend­ing Hart, la­belled him as a pub­lic of­fi­cial caught up in a bat­tle be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and his de­trac­tors dur­ing de­bate on a bill to val­i­date the pro­ceed­ings of the Uff Com­mis­sion of In­quiry.

Man­ning said Hart's de­trac­tors were the "tyran­ny of the lynch mob" he said. "They want to get Calder Hart, but let me tell you, it is not Calder Hart. It is not Ude­cott. It is the Prime Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment; that is what they are af­ter!" Carl Khan, the ex-hus­band of Hart's wife, Sher­rine, had come for­ward five months ear­li­er to cor­rob­o­rate Ma­haraj's al­le­ga­tions. Com­ment­ing on Khan's al­le­ga­tions, Man­ning said, "They are not in­ter­est­ed in the truth, they pre­fer to re­ly on the ev­i­dence of a jilt­ed lover." Speak­ing at the 2009 open­ing of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts-an­oth­er Ude­cott project-Man­ning hailed Hart. "Many can talk, but few can build," Man­ning said. "As the Bible says, by their deeds they shall be known." But, in ad­di­tion to prais­ing Hart, the Prime Min­is­ter has been con­sis­tent in his praise of Ude­cott as a cor­po­ra­tion. He de­fend­ed the com­pa­ny as he re­sist­ed calls for a Com­mis­sion of In­quiry in­to its af­fairs.

Hart was at the mid­dle of Man­ning fir­ing Dr Kei­th Row­ley, then Plan­ning Min­is­ter, in April 2008, af­ter Row­ley called for greater over­sight over Ude­cott. Man­ning re­sist­ed Row­ley's call for a com­mis­sion of in­quiry in­to Ude­cott. On May 12, 2008, Man­ning de­fend­ed spe­cial pur­pose state en­ter­pris­es like Ude­cott at a PNM break­fast meet­ing at the Crowne Plaza, Port-of-Spain, say­ing com­pa­nies like Ude­cott were need­ed be­cause of "pub­lic ser­vice bu­reau­cra­cy." Even when he an­nounced a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, and not an in­quiry, in a spe­cial ap­pear­ance in the Sen­ate on May 13, 2008, Man­ning still de­scribed al­le­ga­tions against Ude­cott as "wild, reck­less, un­in­formed state­ments" and failed to say if the Gov­ern­ment had tak­en steps to in­ves­ti­gate the al­le­ga­tions. Even af­ter Ma­haraj's al­le­ga­tions were made, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, on Ju­ly 18, 2008, re­vealed that the Prime Min­is­ter met with of­fi­cials from Sun­way, the same com­pa­ny linked with Hart.