Yvonne?Ba­boolal

In an his­toric move and in the midst of what she claims are death threats, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er, Rho­da Bharath, has writ­ten to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Harold Phillips re­quest­ing a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion be launched in­to Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, Stephanie Lewis.

Bharath has writ­ten the com­mis­sion­er about the is­sue of the hous­ing al­lowance grant­ed to Car­mona and which she said re­mained un­re­solved for two years. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, she said, should cen­tre around pos­si­ble mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice. The let­ter to the CoP was writ­ten for Bharath by her at­tor­ney, Justin Phelps. It con­tained the ad­vice of Queen's Coun­sel Cathryn Mc Ga­hey who Bharath re­tained ear­ly this month con­cern­ing whether a re­quest to the CoP to in­ves­ti­gate the Pres­i­dent, his sec­re­tary, Es­ther Daniel-Liv­er­pool, and the CPO was jus­ti­fied.

"Ms Mc Ga­hey has ad­vised me that a re­quest for such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is jus­ti­fied," she said. Bharath said Mc Ga­hey told her: "The case is fine­ly bal­anced but I be­lieve that there are at the mo­ment rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect that the of­fence of mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice has been com­mit­ted. "The cir­cum­stances in which the Pres­i­dent came to re­ceive the hous­ing al­lowance have not yet been ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed or, if they have, the re­sults of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion have not been made pub­lic.

"There are rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect that a re­quest for the al­lowance was made on the Pres­i­dent's be­half and with his knowl­edge. There are some grounds to sus­pect that the Pres­i­dent and/or oth­ers in­volved knew or be­lieved that he was not en­ti­tled to the al­lowance."

Bharath, in the com­pa­ny of Phelps, said at a Trinidad Hilton press con­fer­ence: "My writ­ing to the Com­mis­sion­er does not mean that the Pres­i­dent, the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer or the CPO are guilty of any of­fence. "It means on­ly that there is suf­fi­cient ma­te­r­i­al in con­nec­tion with the re­ceipt of pub­lic funds by the Pres­i­dent to war­rant a thor­ough, ef­fi­cient and trans­par­ent crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

Bharath said in Car­mona's Sep­tem­ber 28 2016 ad­dress to the na­tion, he ap­peared to con­tra­dict doc­u­ments she had in her pos­ses­sion when he said he did not sug­gest to the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion that he be giv­en the hous­ing al­lowance. She gave the me­dia copies of a June 9, 2013 let­ter from the CPO's Of­fice to the Pres­i­dent's sec­re­tary, Es­ther Daniel-Liv­er­pool, con­cern­ing the pay­ment of hous­ing al­lowance to the Pres­i­dent. "Where an of­fice hold­er is pro­vid­ed with ac­com­mo­da­tion by the State, a hous­ing al­lowance is not payable for any pe­ri­od dur­ing which he/she is pro­vid­ed with such ac­com­mo­da­tion.

"In in­stances where the of­fi­cial res­i­dence is not avail­able and suit­able hous­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion is not pro­vid­ed, a hous­ing al­lowance is payable." The CPO said the Pres­i­dent was pro­vid­ed with tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion at Flagstaff Hill pend­ing ren­o­va­tions to Pres­i­dent's House and, in view of the par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances, a hous­ing al­lowance of $15,450 should be paid to him.

In his ad­dress to the na­tion on Sep­tem­ber 28, 2016, Car­mona an­swered a num­ber of ques­tions raised by Bharath about ex­hor­bi­tant spend­ing by Pres­i­dent's House on Ital­ian wine, jew­el­ry and choco­lates. He said the Flagstaff Hill ac­com­mo­da­tions leaked all over and he rent­ed an apart­ment for his fam­i­ly pay­ing $12,000 a month from his own pock­et. He said when he moved in­to the Pres­i­den­tial Cot­tage on May 30, 2015, he im­me­di­ate­ly in­struct­ed the Ac­count­ing De­part­ment to stop pay­ment of the hous­ing al­lowance.

Le­gal sources told the T&T Guardian that while the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent could not be pros­e­cut­ed, the Pres­i­dent him­self was not im­mune from a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion

Threats

Bharath said she had re­ceived two death threats as a re­sult of the ques­tion she raised about the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent and she was abused and ha­rassed.

Pressed, she said the threats were made on­line and she re­port­ed them to the po­lice Cy­ber Crime Unit.

Bharath al­so claimed she got "third-hand in­for­ma­tion" from her UWI col­leagues that the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent called the uni­ver­si­ty to find out what she did there. She said she was made to un­der­stand she was be­ing mon­i­tored and ob­served at UWI.

Bharath dis­missed ques­tions that her ques­tions about the Pres­i­dent was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and that it was a plan to re­place him with a "Row­ley ap­pointee" when his first term ex­pires next year. All pres­i­dents, to date, have served two terms. Bharath said her on­ly mo­ti­va­tion was to get pub­lic of­fi­cials to prac­tise ac­count­abil­i­ty.

She said she did not work for any gov­ern­ment or par­ty nor had she re­ceived any ben­e­fits, favour, grace or good­will from, the PNM, UNC or any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Asked by the me­dia about her re­jec­tion (by the Pres­i­dent) in her bid to be­come an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, Bharath said she was rec­om­mend­ed by au­thor/pub­lish­er, Ger­ard Besson, as a pos­si­ble ap­pointee to a statu­to­ry in­sti­tu­tion and not a sen­a­to­r­i­al po­si­tion.

She said she had a 20 or 30-minute meet­ing with the Pres­i­dent about the mat­ter. Phelps, sit­ting next to her, was asked about his PNM links and re­mind­ed he ap­peared on PNM elec­tion cam­paign plat­forms last year.

Phelps said when he joined the PNM he was on­ly ex­er­cis­ing his con­sti­tu­tion­al right and said that had noth­ing to do with his job as an at­tor­ney. The T&T called UWI's Mod­ern Lan­guages and Lin­guis­tics De­part­ment where Bharath works and asked whether they knew that the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent was mon­i­tor­ing her.

A staffer said: "That's for the head to an­swer." Af­ter ap­par­ent­ly dis­cussing the mat­ter with the head (Dr Nicole Roberts), she said: "The head seems to be busy. Can you leave a tele­phone num­ber." Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Of­fi­cer at the Pres­i­dent's Of­fice, Theron Boodan, said if there was any­thing to re­spond to at all he would, adding he has not heard Bharath him­self. Phillips could not be reached.