Gail Alexan­der

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney has drawn some mixed crit­i­cism af­ter post­ing a video on so­cial me­dia at the beach yes­ter­day, boast­ing that “for­tu­nate­ly,” he was “one of those who can af­ford to pay to come in the sea­wa­ter” and that there was “not one damn thing” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley could do about it.

Beach­es in T&T are cur­rent­ly closed un­der pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions to curb the spread of the dis­ease.

Row­ley re­cent­ly said Gov­ern­ment was watch­ing COVID-19 case num­bers and was look­ing ahead at per­haps open­ing beach­es for ear­ly morn­ing hours from 5 am to noon.

In the video, for­mer judge Vol­ney was seen stand­ing on a beach with waves in the back­ground and some oth­er peo­ple in the wa­ter.

Vol­ney said, “Aye Kei­th Row­ley look at me, Her­bert Vol­ney ... you see where I go­ing? I go­ing in de sea, watch de sea...look de sea, look de sea - see?”

When Vol­ney first be­gan in the video, a per­son was heard in the back­ground ad­vis­ing him not to say what he was say­ing.

But he said to the cam­era, “I goin in de sea and there’s not one damn thing you can do about it, Kei­th Row­ley. OK ...”

He added, “You suf­fer­ing the peo­ple, keep­ing the peo­ple away from de sea, which has all the bless­ings of the Lord to deal with COVID, you wicked man ...”

“But you see you won’t keep me back. For­tu­nate­ly, I’m one of those who can af­ford to pay to come in the sea­wa­ter - and there’s not one damn thing you can do about it. So eat your heart out Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, you grim reaper, you mean man!”

Re­ply­ing to T&T Guardian ques­tions yes­ter­day on his beach day when beach­es were closed, Vol­ney re­it­er­at­ed that those who can af­ford it can en­joy the sea. He said the beach vis­it was yes­ter­day but de­clined sev­er­al times to say where it was, whether in T&T or oth­er­wise.

“That’s my se­cret ... don’t ask me my busi­ness ... I said in the video those who can af­ford it, can go in the sea ... I don’t have to an­swer that ques­tion ...,’’ Vol­ney said.

“If you can af­ford it, you can go in the sea. The sit­u­a­tion is very up­set­ting to every­body in T&T that those who can af­ford it, can go in the sea but those who can’t (af­ford it) can’t do so ... and that makes the Prime Min­is­ter a mean man!’’

Vol­ney was fired from the PP gov­ern­ment in 2012 con­cern­ing the ear­ly procla­ma­tion of the in­fa­mous Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice Act. He re­signed from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in Ju­ly 2013. This was af­ter the UNC suf­fered a hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat in its Ch­agua­nas West strong­hold tak­en then by Jack Warn­er. In the Au­gust 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, Vol­ney sup­port­ed the PNM, say­ing it was the “safe choice.’’

Yes­ter­day, Vol­ney’s video, which went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia, drew some fire in cer­tain quar­ters from peo­ple ques­tion­ing his judge­ment, as a for­mer judge, to go “beach­ing” when beach­es were closed, to queries of who to pay to go to the beach and oth­ers laud­ing his beach play or say­ing, “We don’t need no stink­ing beach, we have flood­wa­ter all the time.’’