Fol­low­ing is the full state­ment re­leased by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning an­nounc­ing his de­ci­sion to de­cline the nom­i­na­tion for the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic:

I wish to re­spect­ful­ly de­cline the pub­licly an­nounced nom­i­na­tion by the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to have me re­ceive the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, this na­tion's high­est award.

The pri­ma­ry rea­son is root­ed firm­ly in my prin­ci­pled stance to not ac­cept any T&T awards while serv­ing as an MP. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it is im­por­tant to note what is ap­pro­pri­ate and what is not, re­gard­ing the an­nounce­ment of such awards. The award of the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T is giv­en to a na­tion­al of T&T who "has ren­dered dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go."

The Hon Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar was able to win gov­ern­ment on May 24th 2010 through a se­ries of sus­tained and vi­cious at­tacks on my char­ac­ter that was led per­son­al­ly by her. These at­tacks con­tin­ue. Through this nom­i­na­tion an­nounce­ment is the Hon Prime Min­is­ter re­tract­ing those ven­omous ac­cu­sa­tions and charges against me?

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I was made aware of this nom­i­na­tion through per­sons who saw it re­port­ed on the so­cial me­dia, Face­book. Sub­se­quent­ly, a dai­ly news­pa­per called one of my sons for a com­ment on the nom­i­na­tion. I was nei­ther con­sult­ed, nor ad­vised pri­or to this an­nounce­ment. I con­sid­er this ap­proach a gross dis­cour­tesy.

Un­der PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions, a com­mit­tee con­sid­ers these dis­tin­guished na­tion­al awards, with the Chief Jus­tice as chair­man and sub­ject to the im­pri­matur of the prime min­is­ter. Due process for these awards in­cludes in­form­ing the po­ten­tial re­cip­i­ents through the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in a con­fi­den­tial man­ner.

On­ly re­cip­i­ents who have agreed to ac­cept an award are then an­nounced pub­licly, and with dig­ni­ty. Had I been con­sult­ed be­fore­hand, I would have been able to pri­vate­ly de­cline. The need for a pub­lic dis­tanc­ing is un­for­tu­nate but nec­es­sary in the light of the many and in­creas­ing­ly de­bauched ap­proach­es to these mat­ters used by this UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion in its four years in of­fice.

I as­sure all cit­i­zens that I hold our in­sti­tu­tions, cer­e­monies and awards in the high­est es­teem and I pray for the day when the Hon Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar and the PP gov­ern­ment demit of­fice and we can once again 'take our pride in our lib­er­ty'."