Richard Lord

For­mer Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing min­is­ter Mary King wrote a let­ter to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion min­utes af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed her from the Cab­i­net. Af­ter a meet­ing with Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters that King would be dis­missed for her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the award of a $100,000 con­tract to her fam­i­ly's com­put­er soft­ware com­pa­ny, Ix­anos Ltd. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, King said she was "sur­prised" that the PM's de­ci­sion was tak­en be­fore her al­leged wrong­do­ing could be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and re­port­ed on by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. King said the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion should have in­ves­ti­gat­ed the mat­ter, not the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

"We just draft­ed the let­ter and they'll have it first thing in the morn­ing," she said. "I wouldn't have mind­ed the ac­tion tak­en (by the PM) had it been done on the ba­sis of an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. "Be­cause that has not been done, I am now ask­ing the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to do such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion on my be­half." King said the en­tire process should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and re­port­ed on by the com­mis­sion. She gave an as­sur­ance that the re­port would be made pub­lic. "I think my rep­u­ta­tion and stand­ing in the so­ci­ety de­mand that such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be done prop­er­ly," the for­mer min­is­ter stressed. King served pre­vi­ous­ly as chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI), the lo­cal arm of Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al. She al­so served as chair­man of the Caribbean Chap­ter of Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Against Cor­rup­tion.

Asked if she felt she was un­fair­ly treat­ed, King said: "I don't want to go down that road...I feel that the prob­lem should have been sent to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion." King said un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, "there is no role for an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to in­ves­ti­gate, it is the com­mis­sion that does the in­ves­ti­ga­tion." Asked to re­spond to claims that she had done wrong, King said: "I am not say­ing that I have done no wrong, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion would iden­ti­fy what the process was." Asked if she had any re­grets, King said: "None at all, none at all, none what­so­ev­er." King said over the past 12 months, she had "worked very qui­et­ly, I have done what I have had to do for this coun­try over the last year and (I) en­joyed every minute of it." King said she hadn't de­cid­ed what she would be do­ing in the fu­ture. "It's too ear­ly, I'll have to sit and think about that," she said. King said she would talk to "the peo­ple" af­ter the re­port of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was made pub­lic.

About Mary King

Four­teen days short of her first an­niver­sary as Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing and Gen­der Af­fairs, Mary King was fired for her al­leged role in the award of a $100,000 con­tract to her hus­band's com­pa­ny Ix­anos Ltd-a pri­vate­ly-held com­put­er soft­ware com­pa­ny. The con­tract was for the in­stal­la­tion of a Web site for her min­istry. Be­fore be­com­ing a min­is­ter, King served as chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI), the lo­cal arm of Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al. King, an econ­o­mist, served as an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor from Jan­u­ary 2001 to Sep­tem­ber 2007. Three years lat­er, on May 24, 2010, she was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing and Gen­der Af­fairs by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

King al­so served as chair­man of the Caribbean chap­ter of Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Against Cor­rup­tion from No­vem­ber 2003 to present. King is a grad­u­ate of the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, hav­ing at­tend­ed from 1973 to 1976. She is al­so chair­man of Mary King and As­so­ciates Ltd, a mar­ket­ing re­search busi­ness con­sult­ing com­pa­ny. Dur­ing her al­most one-year as min­is­ter, she pre­sent­ed a pri­vate mo­tion on the State of the Econ­o­my, which is yet to be con­clud­ed. On­ly days ago, she suc­cess­ful­ly pre­sent­ed for de­bate in Par­lia­ment a mo­tion for the ex­ten­sion of the Pop­u­la­tion Cen­sus.