Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Amery Browne says the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, must apol­o­gise to the chil­dren, their par­ents and cit­i­zens for what took place at the Nic­ki Mi­naj con­cert two months ago.

Browne said this in the wake of a re­port­ed call by Richard Hope, CEO of CVR En­ter­tain­ment, for an apol­o­gy from him (Browne). CVR is the US af­fil­i­ate of D Project Records, pro­mot­er of the Oc­to­ber 30 con­cert, which was held at the Hasley Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Port-of-Spain. Hope is claim­ing that re­marks made by Browne over the past few weeks have neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed on the Trinida­di­an-born artiste.

But Browne in re­sponse yes­ter­day said: "The is­sue is not about an artiste but about a Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, about the tax­pay­ers and about hun­dreds of our na­tion's chil­dren be­ing abused and then mis­led re­peat­ed­ly." Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Anil Roberts is to ap­pear be­fore the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges for mis­lead­ing the Par­lia­ment on the con­cert.

Browne had claimed that ob­scene lan­guage was used dur­ing the event , but it was de­nied by Roberts. House Speak­er Wade Mark, in his rul­ing last week, said a pri­ma fa­cie case was made out against the min­is­ter and ruled that he ap­pear be­fore the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

Browne said yes­ter­day: "There is a clear ef­fort un­der­way to cov­er-up the re­al­i­ty of the Ho­n­ourable Anil Roberts be­ing sent to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee and to try to avoid an au­dit on the ex­pen­di­ture of tax­pay­ers' dol­lars." Roberts con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment con­tributed more than $800,000 for the con­cert, which was to launch the "Lo­cal­ize Itt" cam­paign.

Browne said the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to "de­flect from the re­al is­sue, which is ac­count­ing for the ex­pen­di­ture of pub­lic funds."

The for­mer so­cial de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter said Roberts must now an­swer to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges and Gov­ern­ment must con­duct a full au­dit of the project. "No one can be sued for telling the truth in our Par­lia­ment," he in­sist­ed.