Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has stood by Gov­ern­ment’s ap­point­ment of Jus­tice Se­bastien Ven­tour as chair­man of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Point Fortin High­way land ac­qui­si­tion is­sue de­spite Op­po­si­tion calls for Ven­tour to step down.

Row­ley un­der­scored his sup­port for Ven­tour at Thurs­day’s week­ly post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

“Of course I’m con­fi­dent (with him), it’s about com­pe­tence and char­ac­ter,” Row­ley said, adding that he saw no is­sue with com­pe­tence or char­ac­ter.

This af­ter the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress on Thurs­day re­it­er­at­ed its de­mand for Ven­tour to step down as CoE head. The par­ty has not­ed that Ven­tour had re­signed from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in 2015 af­ter tak­ing is­sue with the com­mis­sion’s ter­mi­na­tion of the Email­gate probe.

Af­ter the re­cent let­ter from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions clos­ing the Email­gate, say­ing there wasn’t enough sub­stance to for­mu­late charges, UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes called for Ven­tour to make his po­si­tion clear on the is­sue.

The UNC’s said the DPP’s state­ment in­di­cat­ed Row­ley “fab­ri­cat­ed the en­tire is­sue in his grab for pow­er in 2015” (sic) and “it was ap­par­ent the en­tire Email­gate af­fair was a hoax.”

Haynes added, “The DPP’s de­ter­mined there’s no ev­i­dence to war­rant fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion. This not on­ly ex­pos­es Kei­th Row­ley’s ne­far­i­ous ac­tions to de­ceive the peo­ple but al­so calls in­to se­ri­ous ques­tion the ac­tions of Jus­tice Ven­tour al­so.

“It must be re­mem­bered that af­ter the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion con­clud­ed there was in­suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to con­tin­ue an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Email­gate, Jus­tice Ven­tour re­signed claim­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion shouldn’t have been closed due to sup­posed in­for­ma­tion be­ing held by the po­lice. We now know that no such ev­i­dence ex­ist­ed.”

She added, “Jus­tice Ven­tour was one of the chief cheer­lead­ers of this hoax and to­day Kei­th Row­ley has ap­point­ed him to pre­side over an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal pap­pyshow in the (CoE). Nei­ther Row­ley nor Jus­tice Ven­tour has any cred­i­bil­i­ty in the eyes of the peo­ple. He should con­sid­er pre­serv­ing what lit­tle dig­ni­ty he has left, apol­o­gise for his part in the hoax and step down.”

Ven­tour and com­mis­sion­er Gre­go­ry Delzin were sworn in as com­mis­sion­ers on Wednes­day. Coun­sel to the team is at­tor­ney Regi­nald Ar­mour (SC) plus Vanes­sa Gopaul and Rishi Dass.

Af­ter Wednes­day’s swear­ing-in, sources close to the com­mis­sion said the team hasn’t sat down yet to plan their sched­ule or oth­er de­tails in or­der to pro­ceed. They said that would be done af­ter oth­er mem­bers of the team get their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment. Ar­mour was said to be out of T&T.