Gail Alexan­der

Why is the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment on the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion's (DPP) "case" since the DPP has func­tioned as an in­de­pen­dent DPP, asks Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

She did so at last night's UNC Mon­day Night Re­port in Pointe-a-Pierre, where she al­so chal­lenged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to come out and name the MP al­leged to be in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ques­tioned Gov­ern­ment plans for a hu­man traf­fick­ing court, adding, "Why don't you deal with the courts you have now? Why is it you all on the case of the DPP?! What you have with that man? I have no rea­son to doubt his in­de­pen­dence in his of­fice - none! So far, he's func­tioned as he should, as an in­de­pen­dent DPP."

She added, "And when he raised con­cerns about staffing - but not a word from the Prime Min­is­ter about the short­ages. He talked about some build­ing some­where where they paid so much mon­ey. Well, you re­al­ly dotish to keep do­ing that - who owns that build­ing? Let's find that out too.

"I'm sure the DPP will re­spond in due course to the al­le­ga­tions they're mak­ing. I don't know all the facts of the case but it ap­pears the Spe­cial Branch rec­om­men­da­tions for cer­tain se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures ... most im­por­tant. But I don't know what prob­lem Row­ley has with the Spe­cial Branch ... he doesn't want to take their rec­om­men­da­tion for the se­cu­ri­ty."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Gov­ern­ment had ap­proved a note for staffing for the DPP's of­fice.

"Then they took over - no lawyers still."

She said it is most rep­re­hen­si­ble that when the DPP asked for more staff the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al speaks about "un­der­per­form­ing."

She added, "What you ex­pect if 75 per cent of the DPP's de­part­ment is un­der­staffed and un­der re­sourced? And look who want to talk about un­der­per­for­mance! ...Shame on you! To­tal in­com­pe­tence!"

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC's meet­ings in­form about cur­rent events, bring com­fort and present plans.

"Com­pare that to what the PNM does at their meet­ing: Row­ley spoke for two hours and pre­sent­ed not a sin­gle plan... he spewed hate, anger, and vit­ri­ol at every­one he feels is op­posed to him," she said.

"There's a dif­fer­ence be­tween pi­cong and what Row­ley did on that plat­form. I have no prob­lem with re­ceiv­ing and giv­ing some pi­cong and jokes, but don't re­sort to this type of crass hate­ful be­hav­iour! "

She said MP Rod­ney Charles’ ques­tion on Bal­isi­er House re­mains unan­swered.

"The PNM must de­clare its wealth. Is it from cor­rup­tion in state con­tracts, 'drug traf­fick­ing mafia,' hu­man traf­fick­ing, is it from sale of par­lia­men­tary seats and board ap­point­ments? You must ex­plain your wealth - Faris, when you passed that 'Ex­plain your Wealth' law, it ap­plied to you, me - every­body!"

"When ac­cu­sa­tions were made against the UNC, we called for in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Over two weeks now and not one per­son has brought an io­ta of ev­i­dence of hu­man traf­fick­ing against any UNC MP. The dis­cred­it­ed ac­cusers have on­ly em­bar­rassed and hu­mil­i­at­ed them­selves fur­ther. Where's the ev­i­dence? There's none! Sim­i­lar­ly, there must be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fund­ing of Bal­isi­er House."

UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al al­so ques­tioned why the DPP is be­ing dep­re­cat­ed for hav­ing le­git­i­mate se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns for his staff. Say­ing Gov­ern­ment didn't want the DPP be­cause he is in­de­pen­dent, she claimed Gov­ern­ment "con­tract­ed out" the of­fice of DPP to a UK in­ves­ti­gat­ing firm to go af­ter ri­vals.

Lutch­me­di­al asked if there is an­oth­er file en­gag­ing the CoP and DPP where charges may be rec­om­mend­ed against a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter

Charles called on the CoP, FIU and Counter Traf­fick­ing unit to call in Row­ley, get the PNM’s ac­counts and ex­plain the wealth on the fund­ing for the Bal­isi­er House con­struc­tion.