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."