Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Leave me alone! This was the mes­sage to the Gov­ern­ment from po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He said the Gov­ern­ment was try­ing to shame him in­to keep­ing qui­et. Row­ley said he couldn't un­der­stand why the Gov­ern­ment was try­ing to bring his char­ac­ter in­to ques­tion when­ev­er he raised mat­ters of cor­rup­tion in which he claimed they were in­volved.

He told par­ty sup­port­ers who came out at Pig­gott's Cor­ner, Bel­mont, on Fri­day to lis­ten to the par­ty's re­sponse to the bud­get:?"I don't know why they don't leave me alone. They al­ways try­ing to dig up some­thing to throw at me. "So if they could find some­thing to em­bar­rass me, find some­thing that I thief, find some­thing that I have to ac­count for, I could be shamed in­to keep­ing qui­et.

"I want to tell the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go tonight, I am no saint. I'm no bet­ter than any of you. I have lived a pub­lic life and I have lived a clean life. The more you look, the less you see." The Op­po­si­tion Leader said he had ap­peared be­fore two com­mis­sions of en­quiry and took the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to court-which cost tax­pay­ers close to $1 mil­lion in le­gal fees and $120,000 in dam­ages, re­spec­tive­ly.

Ad­dress­ing a crowd, which in­clud­ed for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice James Philbert, se­nior Mag­is­trate Lu­ce­na Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Mar­i­ano Browne, Arnold Pig­gott and Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, Row­ley al­so spoke about the pe­ti­tion to the Pres­i­dent which Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said on Fri­day had no sig­na­tures. He said the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused him of de­ceiv­ing the Pres­i­dent.

"They are al­ways try­ing to change my char­ac­ter. I am to be pre­sent­ed in some de­mon­ic way...so I de­ceived the Pres­i­dent." Row­ley said he wrote a let­ter of pe­ti­tion which he signed and de­liv­ered to the Pres­i­dent. He said he went with "a bag full of sig­na­tures" and it was his in­ten­tion to leave it with the Pres­i­dent but was told it was okay.

"Nev­er in my wildest dreams did I think I would have to ex­plain and prove to the Gov­ern­ment that there were sig­na­tures. "So this idle Gov­ern­ment that has noth­ing to do, writes the Pres­i­dent and he writes back to tell them there were no sig­na­tures on the pe­ti­tion that he re­ceived."

Row­ley said he did not re­ply to the Pres­i­dent's cor­re­spon­dence but would call him and tell him that he in­tend­ed to tell the pub­lic what he (Pres­i­dent) told him. Speak­ing on the bud­get, Row­ley said it was the biggest in the coun­try's his­to­ry and the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to spend "more and more."

"The bud­get was bad. There are num­bers in there that were bad, there were mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions and mis­al­lo­ca­tions, and al­so they say it is a bud­get, but it is a por­cu­pine...you don't know. "It could be any­thing be­cause you can't trust any­thing this Gov­ern­ment tells you," Row­ley said.

He told sup­port­ers that if the Gov­ern­ment last­ed its full term it would spend close to $500 bil­lion with noth­ing sig­nif­i­cant to show. "It is on­ly the PNM that will come back in­to of­fice and pick up this coun­try's de­vel­op­ment where we left off." He as­sured that the rapid tran­sit sys­tem will be im­ple­ment­ed when the PNM re­turns to of­fice.