Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is dis­miss­ing any al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism or crony­ism in his ap­point­ments to key state boards.

This comes af­ter for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­lud­ed to such in­ter-fam­i­ly ap­point­ments dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate last week. Per­sad-Bisses­sar named no names, but said then that she planned to talk more on nepo­tism and cronysim on an­oth­er day. Row­ley, how­ev­er, blast­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her claims.

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke vague­ly of "dy­nas­ties be­ing cre­at­ed so that a fa­ther hold­ing high of­fice will have to ap­pear be­fore his daugh­ter-in-law who al­so holds high of­fice, and his broth­er is ap­point­ed as the new Hart."

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not name names then, it has been con­firmed to the Sun­day Guardian that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­fer­ring to the fa­mil­ial re­la­tion­ship be­tween Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia who is fa­ther-in-law to Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, while his broth­er Noel Gar­cia has been named as the chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott).

Al­so, dur­ing that con­tri­bu­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar men­tioned that she planned to look close­ly at whether the cam­paign man­ag­er to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and hus­band to Speak­er of the House, Neu­man George, was re­ward­ed by an ap­point­ment as the chair­man of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC). Row­ley dis­missed that al­le­ga­tion. "

My cam­paign man­ag­er was Jack­ie Lazarus and she has not yet been ap­point­ed any­where," Row­ley said, in re­sponse to a text mes­sage. "Of all the oth­er peo­ple they were con­sid­ered among oth­ers and found to be the best fit for their po­si­tion at this time," Row­ley said.

He added a pos­si­ble jab to the re­ports of false cre­den­tials un­der the PP.

"All their qual­i­fi­ca­tions are gen­uine and their ex­pe­ri­ence is valu­able to the coun­try," he said.

Row­ley said that the Gov­ern­ment, un­der his watch, has a large sub-com­mit­tee of Cab­i­net which "over­sees the se­lec­tion and place­ment of board mem­bers. "So there is very lit­tle chance of ap­point­ments like the high-pro­file, in­fa­mous ap­point­ments which was a hall­mark of a pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion," Row­ley said.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie al­so com­ment­ed on the al­le­ga­tions and said that the for­mer prime min­is­ter need­ed to check the de­f­i­n­i­tions of the words "nepo­tism" and "crony­ism." Cuffie said the ap­point­ment of the sen­ate pres­i­dent's fa­ther-in-law as a min­is­ter is "nei­ther crony­ism nor nepo­tism."

"The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter had no role in ei­ther ap­point­ment or nom­i­na­tion. The Sen­ate Pres­i­dent was ap­point­ed by the Sen­a­tors and I am not aware of any ob­jec­tions even by the UNC Sen­a­tors," Cuffie said in an email in­ter­view.

AL­LE­GA­TIONS UN­DER PP

In 2011, then op­po­si­tion leader, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of ap­point­ing par­ty favourites and close friends to key se­nior posts. One such po­si­tion high­light­ed by Row­ley was the ap­point­ment of Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine to the head of the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency.

Row­ley al­so ac­cused the UNC of ap­point­ing min­is­te­r­i­al crony Gan­ga Singh as the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the state-owned Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty. Singh was lat­er named min­is­ter of the en­vi­ron­ment and wa­ter re­sources af­ter a cab­i­net shake-up.

NEPO­TISM UN­DER THE PNM

In 2002, the pri­ma­ry charge of nepo­tism un­der the Patrick Man­ning-led PNM was the ap­point­ment of his wife, Hazel Man­ning, as the ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter.