Gail Alexan­der

Apolo­gies be­gan flow­ing yes­ter­day from the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy on the con­tro­ver­sial Ram­nar­ine/SSA is­sue and are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to­day in Par­lia­ment. The shift ap­peared to be part of the Gov­ern­ment's bid to re­coup, af­ter the furore sur­round­ing the short-lived ap­point­ment of SIA ju­nior em­ploy­ee Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine as Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency head. The Op­po­si­tion, how­ev­er, will be launch­ing a three-pronged at­tack on the mat­ter dur­ing to­day's Low­er House, in­clud­ing a mo­tion of priv­i­leges against Sandy for his ini­tial state­ments on the is­sue last week that Ram­nar­ine was qual­i­fied for the post.

The Ram­nar­ine is­sue was dis­cussed at yes­ter­day's Cab­i­net ses­sion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an said yes­ter­day. While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Wednes­day that she would not heed the Op­po­si­tion's call to apol­o­gise on the is­sue, apolo­gies be­gan to flow yes­ter­day from her ad­min­is­tra­tion, ahead of to­day's House ses­sion when PNM ac­tion on the is­sue is ex­pect­ed. Apol­o­gis­ing first-yes­ter­day morn­ing-was the PM's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vis­er Gary Grif­fith who said: "I'm sor­ry for the way in which this whole sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped, in­clud­ing how ap­proval was made, state­ments de­liv­ered and Ram­nar­ine's im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion.

"But I don't see why the Prime Min­is­ter should apol­o­gise, based on er­rors that might have been made by some­one in the pub­lic sec­tor, as the rec­om­men­da­tion came from the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA) to the SSA's deputy di­rec­tor...This was sub­mit­ted to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil," he added. Min­is­ters Sandy, Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Prakash Ra­mad­har had de­liv­ered state­ments in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, af­firm­ing that Ram­nar­ine was qual­i­fied. Sandy ad­mit­ted Tues­day that he was "now ad­vised" Ram­nar­ine was not qual­i­fied and deemed the sit­u­a­tion "un­for­tu­nate."

Ra­mad­har said the sit­u­a­tion was ex­treme­ly "un­for­tu­nate," warned against rep­e­ti­tion of such "er­rors" and apol­o­gised for any false im­pres­sion cre­at­ed by his state­ments. Af­ter his ad­mis­sion, Sandy held a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, af­ter the PM was braced with a flood of me­dia queries ear­li­er that day about his views. Af­ter the meet­ing, the Guardian was in­formed Sandy would make an­oth­er state­ment to­day. But af­ter yes­ter­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing, Sandy's min­istry is­sued a state­ment with his apol­o­gy. He is al­so ex­pect­ed to apol­o­gise to the Par­lia­ment this af­ter­noon. The state­ment not­ed that Sandy con­veyed in­for­ma­tion to Par­lia­ment last Fri­day con­cern­ing Ram­nar­ine's qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

"Since then, it has been brought to the min­is­ter's at­ten­tion that the in­for­ma­tion pre­sent­ed was in­ac­cu­rate," it said. "It was nev­er the in­ten­tion of the min­is­ter to mis­lead the Par­lia­ment or the pub­lic. "The min­is­ter wish­es to apol­o­gise for such in­ac­cu­ra­cies." Ram­bachan, who on Tues­day had toed the Cab­i­net line on the mat­ter, said on Wednes­day that he would apol­o­gise in Par­lia­ment to­day for any mis­lead­ing in­for­ma­tion.

Mean­while, af­ter a spe­cial Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) meet­ing on Wednes­day on the is­sue, COP deputy chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma said last night: "I dep­re­cate the ac­tion of those who chose to lie to and/or mis­lead the Par­lia­ment and/or the peo­ple of T&T by ten­der­ing false in­for­ma­tion to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter with the in­tent that he would pub­lish such false in­for­ma­tion to mis­in­form the Par­lia­ment in this de­ba­cle.

"I se­ri­ous­ly won­der whether or not a crim­i­nal act has been com­mit­ted," he added. De­spite the flow of apolo­gies, the Op­po­si­tion in­tends to fire on the Gov­ern­ment heav­i­ly to­day. Apart from the PNM's priv­i­leges mo­tion against Sandy-ex­pect­ed from MP Amery Browne-PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley would al­so bring up the Ram­nar­ine is­sue with­in de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion con­cern­ing the SIA. PNM MP Colm Im­bert al­so has a mo­tion for de­bate on the Ram­nar­ine is­sue at the con­clu­sion of to­day's ses­sion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's men­tor and one-time po­lit­i­cal gu­ru, for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day-whom she praised at Mon­day's UNC cel­e­bra­tion-says Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the one who must do the ex­plain­ing since she heads the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

"She must, since the ap­point­ment was ap­proved by the coun­cil which she heads," Pan­day said. "Sandy is just an NSC mem­ber. He has made sev­er­al con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments al­ready, there­fore it's im­per­a­tive she clears the air. "She heads the Cab­i­net, so the buck stops at the Prime Min­is­ter...She can't shirk her du­ty on this," Pan­day added. COP deputy leader Robert May­ers said: "The Ram­nar­ine 'er­ror' has raised ques­tions con­cern­ing the judg­ment of the Prime Min­is­ter who heads the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. "This is­sue shows a com­plete lack of un­der­stand­ing of T&T's se­cu­ri­ty re­quire­ments at a time when crime is ram­pant," he said.

"One there­fore has to ques­tion the judg­ment of the Prime Min­is­ter who chairs the NSC. Clear­ly, this sit­u­a­tion didn't re­sult from any sober re­flec­tion," May­ers added.