Clevon Raphael

If dis­missed Cab­i­net min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves wants to re­tain any de­gree of cred­i­bil­i­ty in her pub­lic ut­ter­ances in her post-Cab­i­net days, she must do more than en­gage in what she has ac­cused oth­ers of do­ing-a vi­cious whis­per­ing cam­paign about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The on­ly dif­fer­ence in what these ru­mour mon­gers are do­ing is while they are con­duct­ing it pri­vate­ly, she has gone pub­lic with the worst kind of in­nu­en­does I have heard for a very long time, from some­one who has held high pub­lic of­fice on­ly a short while ago. The most star­tling state­ment St Rose-Greaves made was in a week­end in­ter­view with the Guardian's Pub­lic Af­fairs Ed­i­tor Sheila Ram­per­sad, in which she said that the Prime Min­is­ter is not in charge of her gov­ern­ment.

With­out giv­ing a shred of ev­i­dence to sup­port that scan­dalous and ir­re­spon­si­ble al­le­ga­tion, which some­one told me can on­ly come from some­one who per­haps is an en­e­my of the state, she told Ms Ram­per­sad: "I know it ap­pears the Prime Min­is­ter is not in charge and that much I think there is gen­er­al agree­ment on. She is not in charge."

What makes this spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion all the more ten­u­ous is the fact that since she was a mem­ber of the Per­sad-Bisses­sar Cab­i­net, the un­sus­pect­ing and less dis­cern­ing among us may think she is speak­ing from a po­si­tion of au­thor­i­ty, which all the ev­i­dence that is out there can­not sup­port.

So you see, it is im­por­tant for this women and chil­dren's ac­tivist to come clean and tell the na­tion who is in charge of the Gov­ern­ment, since she has said with­out hes­i­ta­tion that the Prime Min­is­ter is not in con­trol of her team. An­oth­er wild and reck­less as­ser­tion, ac­cord­ing to the good­ly la­dy, is that there are peo­ple in­side the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate work­ing to­wards un­der­min­ing the Prime Min­is­ter so they could do what they want to.

Not con­tent with ap­par­ent­ly try­ing to cast doubts in the minds of the Gov­ern­ment's sup­port­ers, St Rose-Greaves went on a TV sta­tion Tues­day morn­ing and en­gaged in fur­ther in­nu­en­does this time about health prob­lem caused by the PM's al­leged over-in­dul­gence in some kind of...I refuse to even men­tion what her de­trac­tors are ac­cus­ing her of.

The whole na­tion knows that Per­sad-Bisses­sar suf­fers from di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion, so this ob­ses­sion over this oth­er al­leged af­flic­tion is quite pa­thet­ic, and even if this was the case St Rose-Greaves or any oth­er like-mind­ed per­son with sound knowl­edge of what they speak, should be brave enough and come out and say what it is pub­licly.

Let me re­late a true sto­ry which I have held back for quite some years, not want­i­ng to em­bar­rass the guilty per­son.

While cov­er­ing a Cari­com heads of gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence I saw a T&T gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, who lat­er be­came PM of this coun­try, walk­ing from his room with a half-filled bot­tle of Black and White Scotch Whisky tucked un­der his arm. His em­bar­rassed li­ai­son of­fi­cer po­lite­ly took away the bot­tle as he was about to speak with the desk clerk at the check-out counter.

Those who live in glass house should not pelt stones, and you can­not li­bel or slan­der some­one for speak­ing the truth. Let's look at this state­ment about KPB not be­ing in charge of her Cab­i­net. Who dis­missed at least four of her min­sters who were found want­i­ng in one way or the oth­er-in­clud­ing the very same St Rose-Greaves?

I guess the per­son or per­sons who fired them were the "un­seen hands" who "are run­ning the af­fairs of this coun­try," ac­cord­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley, who made that il­lu­mi­nat­ing charge over the week­end. Sud­den­ly he has joined the ranks of psy­chics with the pow­er to see "un­seen hands."

What a pa­thet­ic joke. De­spite her health chal­lenges, I think she is do­ing an ex­cel­lent job in keep­ing her side to­geth­er, and if it is one thing I agree with her and St Rose-Greaves on, it is that she is the most scru­ti­nised Prime Min­is­ter this coun­try has ever seen.

If I am to crit­i­cise Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, it is for is her in­abil­i­ty so far to rein in her min­is­ters, those who are speak­ing out of turn. It is dif­fi­cult to do so in a coali­tion gov­ern­ment, but a method must be found not to give the im­pres­sion that Cab­i­net is not on the same page, at the same time, when deal­ing with se­ri­ous mat­ters of na­tion­al con­cern.

Take this Kublals­ingh the­atri­cal farce in which one of her Cab­i­net col­leagues asked her to show com­pas­sion and hu­man­i­ty. This ap­peal came af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar put at this man's dis­pos­al her Min­is­ter of Health, an am­bu­lance and oth­er med­ical per­son­nel, which he ven­omous­ly re­ject­ed.

But in my hum­ble view, his an­tics over the last how­ev­er many days is noth­ing but the­atre of the ab­surd, and as Spran­galang would say: "Eef the marn wants to keel him­self-lef' him."