Jensen La Vende

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night added hers to the grow­ing list of voic­es con­demn­ing parts of the state­ment by To­ba­go MP Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin dur­ing the vote of no con­fi­dence against Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Wednes­day.

How­ev­er, say­ing she had ac­cept­ed Al­leyne-Top­pin's apol­o­gy on the mat­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said no ac­tion would be tak­en against her, de­spite the con­tin­u­ing calls for her re­moval.

Al­leyne-Top­pin in­censed cer­tain seg­ments of so­ci­ety when she an­nounced dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion that Row­ley was a prod­uct of a rape and that he too al­leged­ly fa­thered a child by the same means. Say­ing this was the rea­son for his ag­gres­sive na­ture, she ques­tioned whether he was wor­thy of hold­ing the of­fice of prime min­is­ter.

The state­ment brought con­dem­na­tion from sev­er­al seg­ments of so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing vic­tims of rape, and even prompt­ed the start of an on­line pe­ti­tion call­ing for her re­moval.

Those calls in­creased yes­ter­day af­ter Rose­lyn Al­leyne, the moth­er of Row­ley's son, Garth, de­nied the al­le­ga­tions and said she had been of­fered $25,000 by a UNC sup­port­er to claim she was raped by Row­ley when she was younger.

Speak­ing fol­low­ing an event ho­n­our­ing Hazel Brown at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, last night, the PM agreed that cer­tain parts of Al­leyne-Top­pin's state­ment were in­deed of­fen­sive.

"I would like to add my voice to the voic­es of con­cern and con­dem­na­tion for parts of the state­ment by the Hounourable Min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin. I have ex­pressed this to her di­rect­ly, the min­is­ter has apol­o­gised and I have ac­cept­ed her apol­o­gy," the PM said.

Asked if Al­leyne-Top­pin would face any sanc­tion, giv­en that Al­leyne has de­nied the al­le­ga­tion, the PM again said while she had an is­sue with some of the state­ment, she had ac­cept­ed Al­leyne-Top­pin's apol­o­gy.

Asked if the mo­tion against Row­ley had back­fired, she said, "No, it did not back­fire be­cause we have the ad­journed date to con­tin­ue the mo­tion."

She added that when Al­leyne-Top­pin made the state­ment she was not in the cham­ber.

Told about Al­leyne's claim of be­ing of­fered a bribe by a UNC ac­tivist to sign an af­fi­davit claim­ing she had been raped by Row­ley, the PM said, "I don't know of which you speak."

She said while the is­sue may have been raised on news casts last night, she was un­able to see it be­cause she was in­tran­sit to the venue at the time.