Gail Alexan­der

?PNM back­bencher Kei­th Row­ley will be present in Par­lia­ment for the UNC's up­com­ing no con­fi­dence mo­tion against Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

Row­ley con­firmed his at­ten­dance when asked yes­ter­day about it. He said: "I'm al­ways in Par­lia­ment." Row­ley said he re­called that his PNM col­leagues had de­fend­ed the last no con­fi­dence mo­tion against Man­ning in 2008. But he not­ed on this oc­ca­sion: "They knew who they were de­fend­ing then, but did they know what they were de­fend­ing? "This all start­ed with that Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es meet­ing in April 2008 when I as for­mer Min­is­ter for Ude­cott tried to re­cruit the Prime Min­is­ter's sup­port in rein­ing in Calder Hart and be­cause of that I was re­moved. "I had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to alert my new Cab­i­net col­leagues to what Ude­cott was ex­pos­ing us and T&T to and I was aware the cli­mate for cor­rup­tion was be­ing cre­at­ed yet I was fired."

Row­ley said there were 15 min­is­ters in the April F&GP meet­ing and he had told them that if the PNM had op­posed cor­rup­tion in the UNC Gov­ern­ment then it was dou­bly wrong to al­low it now. Row­ley claimed Works Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was one of four min­is­ters who Man­ning said he had spo­ken to, in in­ves­ti­gat­ing Row­ley's state­ments in the meet­ing. Man­ning, in dis­miss­ing Row­ley, had said sev­er­al min­is­ters had com­plained of "hooli­gan" and "wa­jang " be­hav­iour by Row­ley in the meet­ing. Yes­ter­day, Row­ley al­leged that the rea­son he knew Im­bert was one of the Min­is­ters Man­ning spoke to, was be­cause his wife had asked Im­bert–in Row­ley's pres­ence–what Row­ley had said in the meet­ing.

Row­ley added: "So in alert­ing my col­leagues I was made a vic­tim of vit­ri­ol from the Prime Min­is­ter and to­day my par­ty is in dis­grace over that." He said Im­bert had filed ev­i­dence with the Uff Com­mis­sion of In­quiry in­to Ude­cott last Fri­day on the last work­ing day of the com­mis­sion. "They thought I would not have re­spond­ed but the com­mis­sion con­tact­ed my lawyer and gave me time to re­spond...they will not get away with that kind of be­hav­iour," Row­ley added.