Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning says sacked Trade Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj are part of a con­spir­a­cy to bring down his Gov­ern­ment. Man­ning made the claim dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's House de­bate on a bill to val­i­date the work of the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor.

The bill was passed with the sup­port of all 36 MPs present as the Op­po­si­tion kept its word to vote for the leg­is­la­tion. "What you thought was Ram­jackG (UNC fac­tion of Ramesh Ma­haraj, Jack Warn­er and Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters) is now Ram­jackG and Row­ley. "That is what it is. Mr Speak­er they are de­struc­tive in the UNC. They are try­ing to de­stroy the UNC and now they're try­ing to de­stroy the PNM. But no such thing will hap­pen," Man­ning in­sist­ed.

The boss of all boss­es

He said he "saw the tag-team re­la­tion­ship" be­tween Row­ley and Ma­haraj.

"The method of op­er­a­tion, as the MP for Tabaquite knows, is a method that is not un­fa­mil­iar to me. It is a method that re­sult­ed in the fall of a Gov­ern­ment in 2001," Man­ning said. He added: "I have known it for some­time. I was on­ly wait­ing to see how it would man­i­fest it­self. "It has be­gin to man­i­fest it­self and what we are see­ing is an at­tempt to de­stroy the UNC and now an at­tempt to de­stroy the PNM and the man in con­trol is capo di tut­ti capi (an Ital­ian Mafia for the boss of all boss­es). At this point, Row­ley got up and asked Man­ning to iden­ti­fy "which brand he was drink­ing" so that he, Row­ley, could avoid drink­ing it. Man­ning hit back, with Bible in hand: "The brand from which I was drink­ing was the Holy Bible." Row­ley then shout­ed from his seat: "That is blas­phe­my. That is blas­phe­my." Man­ning then asked his for­mer min­is­ter: "You be­lieve you are God? Let God de­cide that." Man­ning added: "If I ap­pear to be drunk, Mr Speak­er, I am drunk on God." Man­ning said Row­ley was ab­sent from a PNM meet­ing for elec­tion can­di­dates years ago to dis­cuss as­pects of the Bible. He then read First Corinthi­ans 13 to Row­ley and oth­er leg­is­la­tors. "If I could speak all the lan­guages of the earth and of an­gels but didn't love oth­ers I will on­ly be a noisy gong or a clang­ing cym­bal," he said. He then asked: "How did my friend sound on Mon­day?" Man­ning said Row­ley "is con­sumed in hate. He is con­sumed in ac­ri­mo­ny, he is con­sumed with an­i­mos­i­ty and that can't do my dear friend. Love changes every­thing."

Not aimed at Hart

He said all the at­tacks led by Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion politi­cians against Ude­cott were not re­al­ly aimed at the com­pa­ny's ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Calder Hart but the Prime Min­is­ter and his Gov­ern­ment. "That is what they are af­ter and they can't un­der­stand how this Gov­ern­ment has not yet fall­en. And let me tell you we shall not fall, we shall not fall." Man­ning said. He ear­li­er dis­played Tues­day's Guardian front page which had a pic­ture of Dr Row­ley in Par­lia­ment. Look­ing at it Man­ning said: "Mr Speak­er I see hate, I see bit­ter­ness , I see ac­ri­mo­ny, I see an­i­mos­i­ty and I see a man com­plete­ly out of con­trol. That is what I see! And that prob­lem is not a new prob­lem to me, you know. I was aware of the ten­den­cy of the mem­ber to go out of con­trol since 1987." Man­ning said sev­er­al years ago for­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary the late Nel­lo Mitchell, "told me I can't deal with (then) Sen­a­tor Row­ley be­cause of his at­ti­tude." He said: "It is from 1996 on­wards that I no­ticed an un­bri­dled at­ti­tude that would do none of us any good. Some­thing hap­pened in 1996, I don't know what it is. I ain't any doc­tor." Man­ning said Row­ley's be­hav­iour had af­fect­ed the Gov­ern­ment of T&T. He said Row­ley's dis­missal as Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter had noth­ing to do with Ude­cott. "The minute you op­pose my good friend (Row­ley) he gets very, very an­gry and if you op­pose him, very strong­ly he be­comes a rag­ing bull. We just were not pre­pared to ac­cept that (be­hav­iour)," Man­ning said.

"Mr Speak­er, you don't know the trou­ble which I see. I have had to live with that (be­hav­iour) for 12 years. I took it in si­lence. I didn't com­plain to any­body but last year I had enough of it." Man­ning said. He said he could not have al­lowed Row­ley to re­main in Cab­i­net and ad­verse­ly in­flu­ence the many new Min­is­ters. "When he can­not have his way Mr Speak­er, his method is to bul­ly you. That is what I fought against. That is why his ap­point­ment (as min­is­ter) was ter­mi­nat­ed. We do not tol­er­ate bul­ly­ing in the sec­ondary school sys­tem. We not tol­er­at­ing it in the Cab­i­net." He told Row­ley: "When you car­ry on with the amount of hate that you have it im­pairs your judge­ment." Man­ning said: "They want Ude­cott so bad­ly, Mr Speak­er, that they don't care what meth­ods they use." He then claimed that Ude­cott crit­ics were hop­ing the ev­i­dence of Carl Khan, the ex-hus­band of Sher­rine Hart (now the wife of Calder Hart), would cause the com­pa­ny to fail. Man­ning said they pre­fer to re­ly on the ev­i­dence of "a jilt­ed lover," to sup­port their cause. "Those di­vorce pro­ceed­ings in the court were so ac­ri­mo­nious that the pro­ceed­ings re­main sealed to this day," he stressed. Man­ning said he hoped the na­tion would have seen Row­ley in full flight on Mon­day as "a man out of con­trol and now bet­ter un­der­stand why I had to act the way I did to pro­tect my Gov­ern­ment."