Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused a sit­ting MP of “tout­ing” to find T&T na­tion­als who re­main strand­ed abroad and bas­ing as­sur­ances of re-en­try on the premise that their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights are be­ing vi­o­lat­ed by the State.

Re­fer­ring to the is­sue dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, Row­ley did not call names but al­lud­ed to an in­di­vid­ual who has had some le­gal train­ing.

The com­ments fol­lowed on the heels of a state­ment by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­gard­ing the re­turn of T&T na­tion­als who re­main scat­tered across the globe, as he ex­plained that lo­cal repa­tri­a­tion ef­forts are be­ing done on a phased and con­trolled ba­sis.

Row­ley said there were peo­ple tak­ing ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be “two-faced” at this time.

“In one breath, they are call­ing for ac­tion op­po­site to what the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing…hold­ing them­selves out as want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate in the man­age­ment of this cri­sis, but be­hind your back, they are mov­ing heav­en and earth to cre­ate prob­lems for T&T,” he said.

“There is one par­tic­u­lar Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment who has le­gal train­ing of some sort and jumps out here pub­licly, call­ing for all kinds of co­op­er­a­tion with the Gov­ern­ment but be­hind your back, he is writ­ing and seek­ing out peo­ple abroad. Tout­ing, that is what it is called, and telling peo­ple that the Gov­ern­ment is vi­o­lat­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and he can get them in­to T&T be­cause a de­nial of en­try is a breach of their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.”

To the un­named MP whom he claimed was an or­gan­is­er of this cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple and whose rel­a­tives were be­ing en­cour­aged to protest for their re­turn to T&T, Row­ley said “COVID-19 does not re­spect any­body’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right and all that we are do­ing in T&T is to pro­tect the lives of the peo­ple of T&T, and if it is that their con­tri­bu­tion is to en­cour­age peo­ple to de­mand their right, ex­pect that the Gov­ern­ment of T&T will re­sist in the pro­tec­tion of the 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple with­in our bor­der.”

He lament­ed the lack of sup­port by col­leagues in T&T dur­ing a time such as this.

Ra­mad­har: T&T na­tion­als home­less in oth­er coun­tries

Mean­while, in a re­lease Sat­ur­day, St Au­gus­tine MP Prakash Ra­mad­har claimed there were T&T na­tion­als abroad now liv­ing on the streets as they could no longer af­ford ac­com­mo­da­tions in some of the coun­tries where they have been strand­ed since March.

Ra­mad­har said he had re­ceived re­ports from peo­ple who are now in pub­lic shel­ters in the US be­cause they no longer have places to stay.

Ra­mad­har claimed they were “ba­si­cal­ly home­less and state­less in oth­er coun­tries."

He added that they now faced all forms of tor­ture in terms of their phys­i­cal health, the lack of med­ical at­ten­tion, and the lack of mon­ey to buy food.

Ra­mad­har sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to go to court if need be, to force the Gov­ern­ment to re­open the bor­ders. The bor­ders have been closed since March 23 but ex­emp­tions have been grant­ed for the grad­ual re­turn of na­tion­als dur­ing that time to present.