Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she re­grets the con­tro­ver­sial procla­ma­tion and sub­se­quent re­peal of Sec­tion 34 which con­tin­ues to haunt her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment."It should nev­er have hap­pened," said Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day as she spoke with re­porters af­ter the Land Set­tle­ment Agency's first draw of al­lo­ca­tions for the Land for the Land­less res­i­den­tial lots pro­gramme at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), San Fer­nan­do.

On Mon­day, the con­tro­ver­sial amend­ment to the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act 2011 reared its head once again dur­ing the de­bate on Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley's no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in the Par­lia­ment.He dis­closed a se­ries of e-mails bear­ing the names of key Cab­i­net mem­bers, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, sent over 17 days last Sep­tem­ber.

He al­leged the e-mails were an ex­change of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that ex­posed a con­spir­a­cy to tap the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions' tele­phone and in­tim­i­date T&T Guardian re­porter Denyse Renne, who broke the Sec­tion 34 sto­ry last Sep­tem­ber.Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she re­gret­ted Sec­tion 34 and "that is why I moved swift­ly to have it (Sec­tion 34) re­pealed and in­deed in the height of all these e-mails up and down, that's what was hap­pen­ing.

"We were in the Par­lia­ment – these al­leged e-mails, I should say – we were in the Par­lia­ment re­peal­ing the very said Sec­tion 34."She de­clined to speak fur­ther on Sec­tion 34, how­ev­er, since "that mat­ter is now sub-ju­dice, as you know, and I would not want to com­ment fur­ther on it. It is be­fore the Court of Ap­peal."

The Prime Min­is­ter, flanked by Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, and Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod said she was "un­fazed" by Row­ley's al­le­ga­tions."I have noth­ing to fear from it. Im­me­di­ate­ly I got it, with­in the same day, with­in hours of hav­ing this brought to us, we passed it on to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for in­ves­ti­ga­tion," she said.She re­it­er­at­ed that the e-mails were a to­tal "fab­ri­ca­tion."

"I think it brings the Op­po­si­tion in­to dis­re­pute, to the ex­tent that it will go. It seems to be acts of des­per­a­tion on the part of the Op­po­si­tion," she added.She said they were "clear­ly de­signed to bring the Gov­ern­ment in­to dis­re­pute. I think this thing has back­fired com­plete­ly."Any right-think­ing per­son re­view­ing the e-mails," the PM said, "will know right away that it was a cut-and-paste job that was done."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley's ac­tions af­ter he re­ceived the al­leged e-mails al­so raised a num­ber of ques­tions.She asked: "Why would you get some­thing that pur­ports to car­ry very se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal in­tent, which there­fore seems to have a threat to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of some­one, and sit on it for six months? Ob­vi­ous­ly he did not be­lieve it him­self."Per­sad-Bisses­sar said if Row­ley be­lieved the con­tents of the e-mails he should have tak­en it to the po­lice for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

She said the is­sue of the e-mails, which Row­ley said he passed to the Pres­i­dent, did not come up dur­ing her meet­ings with for­mer Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards or his suc­ces­sor Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona.The PM de­clined to com­ment when she was asked if in­ter­na­tion­al help was be­ing sought to trace the source of the e-mails."I would not want to pro­nounce up­on or pon­tif­i­cate on what they should or should not do. That is an in­de­pen­dent of­fice. They will de­ter­mine what needs to be done," she said.