Shal­iza Has­sanali

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley wants to know why the Fraud Squad and the po­lice have re­fused to ar­rest wrong do­ers at cash-strapped Na­tion­al Quar­ries.Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at a pub­lic meet­ing in Tu­na­puna on Fri­day, Row­ley said, he won­dered whether the po­lice and the Gov­ern­ment were re­luc­tant to go af­ter those in­volved in cor­rup­tion at Na­tion­al Quar­ries be­cause the name of a friend of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had called been in the mat­ter.

On Fri­day, chair­man of the com­pa­ny Mi­tra Ramkhelawan sus­pend­ed the CEO San­dra Fer­nan­dez over qual­i­fi­ca­tions which had been ques­tioned.Row­ley called on the Prime Min­is­ter to launch a probe in­to Na­tion­al Quar­ries with re­gards to si­phon­ing of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey.

"The Prime Min­is­ter and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al are silent as if noth­ing ain't hap­pen. Tonight, I call on the Fraud Squad, po­lice and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Why they are not do­ing their job at Na­tion­al Quar­ries where pub­lic monies have been stolen in very large amount by known per­sons?"It was mind bog­gling, Row­ley said, that all rel­e­vant and de­tailed in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed to the po­lice, but they re­fused to lift a fin­ger.

"You know why? the Gov­ern­ment is say­ing to you, this is what you must take be­cause we are not in­ter­est­ed in de­cen­cy, hon­esty or ac­count­abil­i­ty, so if we are hap­py with it, you must take that."He said if gov­ern­ment ap­pointees are found break­ing the law, the Gov­ern­ment shows no in­ter­est."But of course, they had an in­ter­est in pros­e­cut­ing peo­ple who they per­ceived to have bro­ken the law un­der the PNM and they put aside mil­lions for Ram­lo­gan to go af­ter them."

Row­ley said Ram­lo­gan was al­lo­cat­ed $300 mil­lions, most of which was spent on go­ing af­ter PNM peo­ple."They went af­ter Patrick Man­ning, Mal­colm Jones, Dr Bri­an Copeland, Wendy Fitzwilliams and any­body who served in the PNM. They came back with no­body. You know Anand Ram­lo­gan and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter they spend hun­dreds of mil­lion of dol­lars chas­ing down peo­ple who they per­ceived to be cor­rupt, have shown no in­ter­est in Jack Warn­er to an­swer for tax­pay­ers' mon­ey."

Row­ley said he was look­ing for­ward to meet­ing the prime min­is­ter on Tues­day for the lead­ers' de­bate in the count­down to the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion."I too am keen to hear what she has to say. I am look­ing for­ward to ask­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to tell this coun­try how a Cab­i­net that has changed its form four times in 36 months...how has that man­aged to con­tribute to the man­age­ment of their af­fairs."