Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says the air must be cleared on a relative of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's husband serving as a member of the Integrity Commission. A weekly newspaper reported that Professor Ann-Marie Bissessar was the cousin of Persad-Bissessar's husband, Dr Gregory Bissessar. Speaking with reporters at the Hassanali Khan Memorial Masjid, at Victoria Village, San Fernando, on Tuesday night, Rowley said: "There is an issue that warrants clarification and I say this purely on the basis of the reaction of the commission to the Prime Minister's political difficulties, not on the basis of the person being a cousin-in-law of (Persad-Bissessar)."
He added that there were some missing pieces that needed to be examined before one could arrive at a proper and reasonable conclusion. Rowley said if Bissessar was appointed when Persad-Bissessar did not hold her current position or was Opposition Leader, then there probably would not be any difficulty. He said, however, that if Persad-Bissessar held any of those positions when Bissessar was appointed, then the President would have consulted her on Bissessar's suitability. "If that was done when this lady was appointed, then the question arises as to what position the Prime Minister now took when she was consulted because if you consult and approve your cousin (in- law) to go on the commission knowing that you are going to be in a position where actions of your administration or yourself could be the subject of a lot of work of the commission, we need to examine that," Rowley said.
He said, however, that the real issue had to with the entire operation of the commission. The PNM political leader also expressed concern about whether the commission responded as a body in its August 4 letter to Persad-Bissessar stating that they had no matters involving her. In the PM's letter to the commission, Rowley said, she requested that her concern be directed to the commissioner who was dealing with the matter. "I was not aware, up until I saw the correspondence...I was not aware that individual commissioners acted on matters of this nature and took positions on matters of this nature," he said. "I thought when Integrity Commission responded or spoke to the country it was a matter of the commission." Rowley said the question arising was whether the commission met as a body and adjudicated on the matter and made a ruling.