Gail Alexan­der

Two weeks short of The PP's Gov­ern­ment's first year in of­fice, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day fired Plan­ning Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing and Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter Mary Kath­leen King for "act­ing im­prop­er­ly" in the is­sue of a con­tract award. The mat­ter is now head­ing for an In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­ga­tion to as­cer­tain whether crim­i­nal charges should be laid. "I'm very dis­ap­point­ed. It's a very sad day for us," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day af­ter meet­ing with Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to re­voke King's ap­point­ment. "It's a sad day. It's a woman and I'm very dis­ap­point­ed and not just be­cause it's a woman, It's a bright per­son but it has to be done," the PM added. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she hoped that would be a les­son for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) team "for all of us," she stressed.

UWI pro vice-chan­cel­lor for Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Dr Bhoe Tewarie, for­mer UWI prin­ci­pal and long-stand­ing politi­cian, is tipped to re­place King in the Plan­ning Min­istry. Irish-born King is a Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) mem­ber and an econ­o­mist. She was a for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor and chair­man of Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al. She is the first min­is­ter to be axed from the Per­sad-Bisses­sar Cab­i­net, ahead of a port­fo­lio re­align­ment next month. She has been in the spot­light in re­cent days re­gard­ing the award of a con­tract for the de­vel­op­ment and host­ing of a Web site at her for­mer Plan­ning Min­istry to Ix­anos Ltd, a fam­i­ly busi­ness which King joint­ly owns with her hus­band, Pro­fes­sor Dr St Clair King. She is al­leged to have failed to dis­close in­ter­est in the com­pa­ny, to have "par­tic­i­pat­ed" in the se­lec­tion process and placed her sec­re­tary on the eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee which rec­om­mend­ed the award to Ix­anos Ltd.

Af­ter the is­sue arose, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred it to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to re­view.

Af­ter King pub­licly com­ment­ed on the con­tract re­cent­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ceived Ram­lo­gan's re­port yes­ter­day. He con­clud­ed a prim&aa­cute; fa­cie case had been made out to war­rant a re­fer­ral of the mat­ter to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Ram­lo­gan said: "The fail­ure of the min­is­ter to dis­close her in­ter­est is in con­flict with the manda­to­ry du­ty of full and frank dis­clo­sure im­posed by Sec­tion 29 of the (In­tegri­ty) Act." (SEE BOX) Per­sad-Bisses­sar met with Pres­i­dent Richards from 11.30 am at Knowsley Build­ing, Queen's Park, when she ad­vised Richards to re­voke King's ap­point­ment as a sen­a­tor and min­is­ter. When Per­sad Bisses­sar emerged from the build­ing at 12.20 pm, she spoke to wait­ing re­porters in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah op­po­site Knowsley.

She said King met with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials on Mon­day when King gave them some doc­u­ments set­ting out what she felt were some dis­crep­an­cies and er­rors in a re­cent sto­ry on the is­sue. Per­sad Bisses­sar said King had sent her some­thing in writ­ing which she (Prime Min­is­ter) sent to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. But Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "New in­for­ma­tion has come to light since the doc­u­ments were pre­sent­ed to us and on the ba­sis of the new in­for­ma­tion I have tak­en a de­ci­sion. "I wasn't aware of many things with re­spect to this mat­ter be­fore the pub­lic ex­pose. "I'm dis­ap­point­ed but giv­en what has tran­spired it is the right thing to do." Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed her de­nial of King's claim that she (PM) had ap­proved the con­tract. "That is to­tal­ly false," she said. She said Gov­ern­ment would have to look in­to the con­tract award. "If it was im­prop­er­ly award­ed and I make no judg­ment on that, it will have to be re­voked.," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She added: "This will serve as a warn­ing, a wake-up call to every mem­ber of the Cab­i­net who is in­ter­est­ed in serv­ing the peo­ple and do­ing so with trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. It will be a les­son for all of us."

She could not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on al­le­ga­tions against Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and Fi­fa, made in the UK yes­ter­day. With Gov­ern­ment's one-year an­niver­sary in of­fice ex­act­ly two weeks away-May 24-and a front­line min­is­ter now fired, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was not weak­en­ing. She said: "We re­main very com­mit­ted, very strong and work­ing. What this does show is we need to re­voke a min­is­ter and if we have to, we will do it again." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­vo­ca­tion of King's ap­point­ment would not ex­pe­dite her re­align­ment of Cab­i­net port­fo­lios next month , "un­less there's an­oth­er in­ter­ven­tion." She said she was not an­tic­i­pat­ing an in­ter­ven­tion but she added: " Life is life. It's nev­er a dull day." She said there would not have been a re­place­ment for King in the Sen­ate in time for yes­ter­day's ses­sion.

She as­sured: "By to­mor­row (to­day), there will be a Plan­ning Min­is­ter."

She said there was no pres­sure to re­place King with a COP can­di­date. "We'll se­lect can­di­dates who we be­lieve will be able to do the job to the best of their abil­i­ty," she added. A PP spokesman con­firmed Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke yes­ter­day to Bhoe Tewarie about the Plan­ning Min­istry post. If not fi­nalised im­me­di­ate­ly, a se­nior min­is­ter will act, they said. Yes­ter­day, King's for­mer front­bench seat in the Sen­ate-fifth from the top-re­mained emp­ty un­til COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an en­tered the cham­ber and oc­cu­pied the seat. Dook­er­an, a Low­er House MP, at­tend­ed Sen­ate to an­swer a ques­tion. The COP, whose ex­ec­u­tive King met yes­ter­day, has called for In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­ter­ven­tion.

AG tells PM:

"I have con­clud­ed that a prim&aa­cute; fa­cie case is made out on the facts and doc­u­ments be­fore me to war­rant a re­fer­ral of this mat­ter to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion. "The fail­ure of the min­is­ter to dis­close her in­ter­est is in con­flict with the manda­to­ry du­ty of full and frank dis­clo­sure im­posed by Sec­tion 29 of the act. "The prob­lem is com­pound­ed by the fact that the min­is­ter ap­point­ed her per­son­al sec­re­tary to serve on the eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee.

"The min­is­ter ought to have dis­qual­i­fied her­self from the en­tire process. She should not have made any ap­point­ment or rec­om­men­da­tion in this re­gard. "The al­le­ga­tions made by per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Ju­liana Boodram and deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Joseph Howard re­gard­ing the ac­tive role of the min­is­ter in the process lead­ing to the award of this con­tract is cause for se­ri­ous con­cern. "It casts doubt on the im­pres­sion giv­en by the Min­is­ter's state­ment that she adopt­ed an 'arm's length' ap­proach to this trans­ac­tion and was noth­ing more than a mere by­stander to it. "The min­is­ter act­ed im­prop­er­ly in fail­ing to dis­close her in­ter­est and dis­qual­i­fy her­self from the en­tire process. Please be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly."