Sto­ries by Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says he has seen “shock­ing” doc­u­ments con­nect­ed to cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions raised by San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning against mem­bers of his own Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), but is re­fus­ing to dis­close how the in­for­ma­tion came in­to his pos­ses­sion.

Alexan­der made the rev­e­la­tion while speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia at a cer­e­mo­ny to com­mem­o­rate the re­lo­ca­tion of the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion to King Street, Princes Town, yes­ter­day.

Asked whether po­lice should in­ves­ti­gate the al­le­ga­tions emerg­ing from the in­creas­ing­ly bit­ter dis­pute in San Fer­nan­do East, Alexan­der said any cred­i­ble sug­ges­tion of cor­rup­tion in­volv­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey war­rant­ed scruti­ny.

“Any place where cor­rup­tion rais­es its ug­ly head should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed be­cause it’s pub­lic funds,” Alexan­der said.

How­ev­er, when ques­tioned specif­i­cal­ly about the on­go­ing con­fronta­tion in­volv­ing Man­ning, his for­mer con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and the PNM lead­er­ship, Alexan­der re­vealed that he had al­ready seen doc­u­ments con­nect­ed to the con­tro­ver­sy.

“I wish them all the best. I have some of the doc­u­ments in my pos­ses­sion that I have seen,” Alexan­der said.

Pressed on what he had seen, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter paused be­fore de­scrib­ing the con­tents as star­tling.

“I don’t know. It’s shock­ing. It’s amaz­ing that some­one could move from the out­house to the White House. That’s all I’m say­ing,” he said.

Alexan­der did not iden­ti­fy the in­di­vid­ual to whom he was re­fer­ring and pro­vid­ed no de­tails about the doc­u­ments or the spe­cif­ic in­for­ma­tion con­tained in them.

When re­porters at­tempt­ed to get him to dis­close what doc­u­ments he had, Alexan­der would on­ly say, “I have seen things. And I’m amazed, though.”

He al­so de­nied that the in­for­ma­tion had been sent to him by Man­ning.

Asked di­rect­ly whether Man­ning had pro­vid­ed him with the doc­u­ments, Alexan­der re­spond­ed, “No, no, no. We just get things. There are per­sons who give us in­for­ma­tion from time to time, whether they are blow­ing the whis­tle or not.”

Alexan­der did not say who pro­vid­ed the doc­u­ments, when they came in­to his pos­ses­sion or whether he had shared what he had seen with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

As of Tues­day, the TTPS said nei­ther the Fraud Squad nor the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau had re­ceived any in­for­ma­tion from Man­ning con­cern­ing his al­le­ga­tions.

Supt Arnold Lutch­man of the Fraud Squad con­firmed that po­si­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day’s week­ly TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing on Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, say­ing the unit had “no re­ports con­cern­ing those mat­ters,” when ques­tioned on the Man­ning al­le­ga­tions.

Mean­while, when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia to as­cer­tain if he did in fact send any doc­u­ments to Min­is­ter Alexan­der, Man­ning said no. He al­so said he has not sent any­thing to the po­lice ser­vice ei­ther.

Asked if he in­tends to send any ev­i­dence of cor­rup­tion to the TTPS, Man­ning said, “Don’t have to. There is so much ev­i­dence in the pub­lic do­main that it was just a mat­ter of time be­fore it ar­rived at the doorstep of the po­lice.”

Man­ning has ac­cused the PNM lead­er­ship of fail­ing to ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress what he de­scribed as a “cor­rupt and crim­i­nal el­e­ment” with­in the par­ty. He has al­so al­leged that some mem­bers of the for­mer San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive be­came “overnight mil­lion­aires” and has raised ques­tions sur­round­ing con­tracts al­leged­ly re­ceived by for­mer con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

The al­le­ga­tions have not been in­de­pen­dent­ly es­tab­lished.

The PNM, mean­while, has said an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­gat­ing team ex­am­ined the San Fer­nan­do East dis­pute and found no ev­i­dence to sup­port al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion.

The par­ty has main­tained that it has been ac­tive­ly deal­ing with com­plaints raised by both Man­ning and Alex­is.

Man­ning met with the PNM lead­er­ship and mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy group on Tues­day night as the par­ty con­tin­ued ef­forts to re­solve the in­ter­nal rift.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les sub­se­quent­ly de­scribed the meet­ing as “very pro­duc­tive” and “or­der­ly.”

Alexan­der stopped short of di­rect­ing the TTPS to open an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing law en­force­ment should be al­lowed to in­de­pen­dent­ly de­ter­mine when the thresh­old for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been reached.

“I think once enough is enough and it at­tracts the at­ten­tion of the po­lice, whether by re­port or oth­er­wise, then the po­lice can af­ford to in­ves­ti­gate,” he said.

He stressed that, de­spite his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio and the in­for­ma­tion he says he has seen, he would not at­tempt to di­rect the po­lice on the mat­ter.

“We are not go­ing to de­mand that the po­lice in­ves­ti­gate any­thing,” Alexan­der said. “The po­lice have their job to do, and we sup­port them. That’s who I am.”