Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

For­mer prime min­is­ter and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Patrick Man­ning served 44 years of un­in­ter­rupt­ed po­lit­i­cal life.

Vi­sion 2020–which was formed while the po­lit­i­cal par­ty was in Op­po­si­tion–was the brain­child of Man­ning. It was un­der his lead­er­ship that the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (Gate), Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP), the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex and the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza were cre­at­ed.

In 2014 he was ho­n­oured with this coun­try's high­est award–The Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, but de­clined say­ing he did not want to ac­cept awards while an MP. While Man­ning made sig­nif­i­cant strides lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to de­vel­op T&T's econ­o­my, land­scape and for­eign ties, he was al­so dogged by many con­tro­ver­sies dur­ing his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

The Sun­day Guardian re­vis­its some con­tro­ver­sies in which Man­ning had been em­broiled. One that stood out is al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in­volv­ing for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) Calder Hart. Hart was con­sid­ered Man­ning's "blue-eyed boy."

It was the al­le­ga­tion of $820 mil­lion in con­tracts award­ed to a com­pa­ny linked to Hart's rel­a­tives that many felt led to the de­feat of the PNM in the May 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Hart re­signed in March 2010 when doc­u­ments sur­faced link­ing him to Sun­way Con­struc­tion Caribbean Ltd–a Malaysian firm that once list­ed his in-laws as di­rec­tors.

The firm worked on Ude­cott's $820 mil­lion Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­ers, which was part of the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza. On­ly last week, a por­tion of the build­ing was opened by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to be used by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

Al­most 20 years ago, Man­ning called a state of emer­gency af­ter he placed then House Speak­er Oc­c­ah Seep­aul un­der house ar­rest.

From Au­gust 5-8, 1995, Seep­aul was un­der house ar­rest by the Man­ning ad­min­stra­tion for al­leged­ly at­tempt­ing to usurp his Gov­ern­ment's au­thor­i­ty in the Par­lia­ment.

In 2004, the for­mer PM, at a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing spoke of the im­por­tance of an ex­ec­u­tive jet.

He said as T&T moved in­to de­vel­oped coun­try sta­tus, and be­gan to ex­ert greater in­flu­ence in the re­gion, the Caribbean and west­ern hemi­sphere, there would be a need for more trav­el by the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate of the coun­try. Two years lat­er, he and his wife, Hazel en­joyed a joyride on a Bom­bardier jet. The pur­chase nev­er hap­pened.

Once more at the cen­tre of at­ten­tion, Man­ning re­ferred to him­self as the "fa­ther of the na­tion" dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal speech, and sub­se­quent­ly re­ceived harsh crit­i­cism.

In 2010, af­ter lead­ing the PNM to de­feat, par­ty sup­port­ers booed and taunt­ed Man­ning out of Bal­isi­er House.

Days lat­er, he re­signed as po­lit­i­cal leader say­ing via let­ter: "May I al­so in­di­cate that if it is the par­ty's wish I am pre­pared to stay on as po­lit­i­cal leader un­til a new po­lit­i­cal leader is elect­ed at which time it would be my plea­sure to grace­ful­ly demit of­fice.

He al­so ac­cept­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the par­ty's loss at the polls.

Sus­pend­ed from Par­lia­ment

In May 2011, Man­ning was found guilty by the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee on con­tempt charges.

The charges against him stemmed from al­le­ga­tions he made about Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's house in Phillip­ine and its cost. But she re­fut­ed the al­le­ga­tions im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter sup­ply­ing proof. Man­ning was re­ferred to the com­mit­tee short­ly af­ter. Mooni­lal said Par­lia­ment's nine-mem­ber Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee held ten meet­ings. He in­di­cat­ed Man­ning was of­ten un­co­op­er­a­tive and re­fused to at­tend. He said the com­mit­tee found Man­ning guilty of con­tempt of Par­lia­ment on all three charges against him.

In No­vem­ber 2010, Man­ning ques­tioned the source of her fund­ing for "Kam­la's palace."

He pre­sent­ed a large pho­to­graph to the Par­lia­ment of the res­i­dence.

Man­ning said: "This pic­ture, Mr Speak­er, is a pho­to­graph of a house un­der con­struc­tion on the San Fer­nan­do, Siparia Erin Road just past Bryan's Gate, Phillip­ine, and on the road to Debe on the right-hand side. It is a house owned by the Mem­ber for Siparia and the Prime Min­is­ter, the ho­n­ourable Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, and in San Fer­nan­do we call it "Kam­la's palace."

Man­ning storms ra­dio sta­tion

In Oc­to­ber 2008, while at a bar­ber­shop in San Fer­nan­do, Man­ning heard ra­dio an­nounc­ers bash his poli­cies and make dis­pleas­ing com­ments. He hur­ried­ly left the bar­ber­shop and stormed in­to 94.1 FM's of­fices on Pem­broke Street in Port-of-Spain. The an­nounc­ers were sub­se­quent­ly sus­pend­ed.

Man­ning re­ceived heavy crit­i­cism for his ac­tions which were de­scribed by for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day as "ab­solute­ly out of line and over­board."

Days af­ter the in­ci­dent, Man­ning said he had had enough of the me­dia.

He then said, "If the spir­it moves me," he will not hes­i­tate to vis­it me­dia hous­es to com­plain if he dis­ap­proved of the con­tent they pro­duced.

Man­ning said: "I have tak­en a per­son­al de­ci­sion and that de­ci­sion is that if ever I am ag­griev­ed by any­thing the me­dia do in the fu­ture, I am go­ing to the courts."

Row­ley "rag­ing bull"

and "wa­jang"

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween Man­ning and cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley over the years has been con­tentious. But it be­came even more strained around 2009 over Row­ley's al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion made in the Par­lia­ment re­gard­ing the op­er­a­tions of Ude­cott. It was in the Par­lia­ment that Man­ning likened Row­ley to "a rag­ing bull" when­ev­er op­posed and "a wa­jang."

Man­ning said he had suf­fered 12 years of bul­ly­ing si­lence from Row­ley and that his gov­ern­ment be­lieved in free­dom of speech.

"But the minute you op­pose my good friend, he gets very, very an­gry. And if you op­pose him strong­ly, he be­comes a rag­ing bull. And that is what it was, Mr Speak­er. You don't know the trou­ble I have seen. I have had to live with that for 12 years. I took it in si­lence...I didn't com­plain to any­body," Man­ning said.

Row­ley was fired from the Cab­i­net in April of 2008. Man­ning made it clear he was fired as trade and in­dus­try min­is­ter be­cause of his be­hav­iour and not be­cause of