Al­most one month af­ter Du­ane O’Con­nor—a ca­lyp­son­ian and po­lice of­fi­cer—was of­fi­cial­ly cho­sen by the PNM Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee as the lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date for the St Ann’s Riv­er South (Sea Lots area) for the De­cem­ber 2019 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions his can­di­da­cy was re­scind­ed.

Was it be­cause O’Con­nor had “lied” to the screen­ing com­mit­tee about where he lived at that time or be­cause of his per­ceived al­le­giance to the UNC who had giv­en him a house? Or was it be­cause of Sea Lots res­i­dents did not want an “in­for­mant” rep­re­sent­ing their com­mu­ni­ty?

Who called the shots on O’Con­nor’s can­di­da­cy, was it the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty?

Why was there a sud­den change of heart by the screen­ing com­mit­tee to hasti­ly re­place O’Con­nor with Jen­neil Fred­er­ick af­ter he had al­ready been cho­sen?

Par­ty in­sid­ers are dis­mayed over what may have led to O’Con­nor be­ing re­placed and be­lieve that the ex­ec­u­tive was in­flu­enced to change their mind about O’Con­nor.

The Sun­day Guardian ob­tained a 30-minute record­ing of a meet­ing from a PNM in­sid­er who was present at the meet­ing held at MP for Port-of-Spain South Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald’s Port-of-Spain con­stituen­cy of­fice on Au­gust 5, last year.

Mc­Don­ald, along with then-act­ing con­stituen­cy chair­man An­tho­ny Fer­gu­son, chaired the meet­ing which al­so in­clud­ed Rono Cal­en­dar—con­stituen­cy sec­re­tary, Wen­dell Stephen—then so­cial me­dia of­fi­cer (now the con­stituen­cy chair­man), Keno Romeo—for­mer coun­cil­lor, June Durham—coun­cil­lor, James Chin Ching—trea­sur­er, Ken Tay­lor—MP’s of­fice as­sis­tant as well as Bev­er­ley Gon­za­les, An­drew Stephen and two oth­er peo­ple.

Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, a voice re­sem­bling that of Mc­Don­ald re­vealed she not on­ly spoke to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley about re­plac­ing O’Con­nor but stat­ed among oth­er things that O’Con­nor had “lied” about where he resided. The voice in the record­ing al­so said the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty would not be com­fort­able with a po­lice­man rep­re­sent­ing them in their com­mu­ni­ty as they saw him as an “in­former.”

‘O’Con­nor lied about his res­i­den­tial ad­dress’

Ac­cord­ing to the record­ing, the woman said she con­tact­ed the prime min­is­ter in­di­cat­ing a change of heart in se­lect­ing O’Con­nor, “...the prime min­is­ter, I had a long chat with him this morn­ing, but I thought it was nec­es­sary...last night I did not sleep. I thought it was nec­es­sary this morn­ing to call him and have a con­ver­sa­tion with him and he agreed with me, with the de­ci­sion I made.

“Some­time over the week­end I got word from the Sea Lots area that I am send­ing a po­lice­man to rep­re­sent them. We had been asked by the screen­ing com­mit­tee not to an­nounce who the peo­ple are. Some­how or the oth­er the sto­ry got out there and I was called sev­er­al times and I was told how could I?...

“You see, that is not the part that re­al­ly af­fect­ed me. The part that af­fect­ed me was the fact that the per­son had lied to the screen­ing com­mit­tee and said that he lived Co­corite. Truth be told, he lives at Ram­goolie Trace in Curepe. Now, he was screened twice in this of­fice and on no oc­ca­sion was it brought to my at­ten­tion or to the ex­ec­u­tive’s at­ten­tion that he did not live in Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy.

“The lie he took to Bal­isi­er House and the night of the screen­ing, he was asked that ques­tion and he made no men­tion of Ram­goolie Trace in Curepe.”

The woman speak­ing at the hour-long meet­ing said that even “con­stituents from Sea Lots” had told her the guy (O’Con­nor) lived at Ram­goolie Trace and she even con­duct­ed her own in­ves­ti­ga­tion and found out that “he was liv­ing Co­corite and his place burn and he got a house un­der the UNC.”

O’Con­nor’s house was de­stroyed by fire in Co­corite in ear­ly 2015, and it was pub­lic knowl­edge that he was al­lo­cat­ed a house by the then gov­ern­ment.

“And he got a house in Ram­goolie Trace. Now, boy, I don’t have a prob­lem if you live Ram­goolie Trace, but dis­close it. Dis­close it.

“Be­cause we live in a pe­ri­od where if you close to the oth­er side and they (sic) aware and they well aware, they gave him a house, and they know that is where he lives. So if he goes off­side and he claims he lives in Co­corite you could imag­ine what would hap­pen on an elec­tion day.

“The on­ly sav­ing grace is the next part of the qual­i­fi­ca­tion, he has a busi­ness in the area.”

‘Sea Lots peo­ple not com­fort­able with O’Con­nor, an in­for­mant’

In spite of this, the voice in the record­ing re­vealed, “be that as it may, the Sea Lots peo­ple are not com­fort­able with this par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­ual.”

The woman said she even de­cid­ed to chat with the Sea Lots res­i­dents about O’Con­nor’s se­lec­tion, “It turns out that they would want no part of it. When I look at their votes it could not have been a sit­u­a­tion where I could have turned a blind eye on. Sea Lots has the biggest pool of work­ers in East PoS and you can­not over­look. So it was some­thing I need to look at.”

The de­ci­sion, the per­son said, had noth­ing to do with her wish­es or with the peo­ple of Sea Lots, but rather if the peo­ple lost such an im­por­tant seat.

“For the par­ty to drop an elec­toral dis­trict in their heart­land, if you went in the heart­land of the PNM in East Port-of-Spain and you should drop such an im­por­tant dis­trict like that, you could imag­ine what the Op­po­si­tion would say. That they are pen­e­trat­ing us and we will look weak in our own back­yard.”

A de­ci­sion was tak­en to go back to the “hi­er­ar­chy of the par­ty and speak with the gen­er­al sec­re­tary, elec­tions coun­cil­lor and vice-chair­man, and the prime min­is­ter. “
“This is not cor­rupt. Don’t go out there and mis­rep­re­sent and mis­con­strue what I have said.”

“The thing about it, the same con­cern I had that this per­son could rep­re­sent that area at this point in time. is the same con­cern these (in­audi­ble) would have had about the con­fi­dence of a po­lice­man bring­ing to that area.”

The in­di­vid­ual did not mince words in the record­ing, “Look, I com­ing down there this evening and hear­ing Burkie was ar­rest­ed and cer­tain elec­tri­cal de­vices were found in his place. I don’t know what de­vices they are.

“So you could imag­ine you bring­ing some­body like that in the mid­dle of that? You know what they go­ing to say, we have sent an in­for­mant.

“Port-of-Spain South has sent an in­for­mant in­to Sea Lots to mark them. We are not na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty could do their job and I have to take on board what those con­stituents are say­ing.

Mc­Don­ald was a key mem­ber of the screen­ing com­mit­tee at the con­stituen­cy and cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive lev­els.

O'Con­nor: I told no lies

The Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed O'Con­nor about two weeks ago via phone.

O'Con­nor ac­knowl­edged that he was the can­di­date cho­sen to con­test the St Ann's Riv­er South seat and said about a month or so af­ter that, Ju­ly 3, he was con­tact­ed by Mc­Don­ald who told him they would be con­sid­er­ing some­one else.

O'Con­nor said he wrote a let­ter to Dr Row­ley but did not share the con­tents of the let­ter with the Sun­day Guardian. "I have no oth­er com­ment to make about what tran­spired," he said.

Let­ter seeks to clear the air with PM

How­ev­er, a PNM par­ty in­sid­er showed the Sun­day Guardian a copy of a let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 14, 2019, that was writ­ten by O' Con­nor, sent to the prime min­is­ter and cc'd to the PNM's gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings and then act­ing con­stituen­cy chair­man An­tho­ny Fer­gu­son.

O'Con­nor said he was "suc­cess­ful­ly cho­sen as the St Ann's Riv­er South can­di­date."

He fur­ther ex­plained that at no time dur­ing the screen­ing did Mc­Don­ald ask about his res­i­den­tial ad­dress. "But rather ques­tions cen­tred around my job as a po­lice of­fi­cer and as a busi­ness­man in Port-of-Spain. To my great sur­prise. I was in­formed by Ms Mc­Don­ald some­time af­ter that they would look for an­oth­er can­di­date."

O'Con­nor told Dr Row­ley in the let­ter that he want­ed to set the record straight on is­sues re­lat­ed to his home ad­dress. Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, he said he was al­so told that "as a po­lice of­fi­cer I was un­fit to rep­re­sent the com­mu­ni­ty as the ma­jor­i­ty of the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty due to re­cent events in the area, that I would be viewed as an in­former by the con­stituents."

O'Con­nor said the pur­pose of writ­ing the let­ter was to "clear the air on the as­ser­tion that I lied about my ad­dress and to state the fact that my home was de­stroyed by fire, and I was the re­cip­i­ent of a house which I am still pay­ing for and I con­tin­ue to re­side at my sis­ter's place at Co­corite."

At­tached to the let­ter was a ca­ble bill in O'Con­nor's name from the Co­corite ad­dress where he still had a room at his sis­ter's place, where he stays from time to time.

O'Con­nor stat­ed that de­spite the de­ci­sion, "I have al­ways been will­ing to sup­port the par­ty in every­thing and will­ing to sup­port who­ev­er is se­lect­ed as I am of the firm be­lief that the PNM is the on­ly par­ty that can solve the prob­lems of the na­tion."

He added, "As a po­lice of­fi­cer, a com­mu­ni­ty in­di­vid­ual and a ca­lyp­son­ian I stand proud to stead­fast­ly hold and ad­here to the prin­ci­ples of the par­ty, but I can­not al­low any­one to cast as­per­sions on my char­ac­ter due to the fact that I oc­cu­py dif­fer­ent res­i­dences in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

MAR­LENE STUMPED

In an at­tempt to seek the truth about the mat­ter and why O’Con­nor was re­placed, the Sun­day Guardian caught up with Mc­Don­ald at Ca­lyp­so on The Greens, where mem­bers of the Re­vue tent were per­form­ing for the com­mu­ni­ty at Pica­dil­ly Greens last Mon­day.

This is the ques­tion and an­swer ex­change be­tween Mc­Don­ald and GML’s Lead Ed­i­tor of the In­ves­tiga­tive Desk Mark Bas­sant. Mc­Don­ald was clear­ly stumped dur­ing the ques­tion­ing.

Q: Some things have re­cent­ly come to light re­gard­ing a lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date, Mr O’Con­nor, in a meet­ing on Au­gust 5 last year. You in­di­cat­ed he could not go up for the con­stituents of St Ann’s Riv­er South be­cause he lied about his ad­dress and the fact he was giv­en a house by the for­mer gov­ern­ment, what do you say to that?

A: I would say that the screen­ing com­mit­tee...there was a process. The process took place and there­fore I have noth­ing to add to it. It is not a Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald de­ci­sion, it is a screen­ing com­mit­tee de­ci­sion, and I want you to un­der­stand that clear­ly.

Q: I un­der­stand that clear­ly. One of the things raised was the fact that Mr O’Con­nor was a po­lice of­fi­cer and it was claimed he was an in­for­mant and Sea Lots peo­ple did not want some­one like that rep­re­sent­ing them.

A: I am un­aware of that, sir.

Q: But there is a record­ing that in­di­cates such...

A: Sir, as I said, I am un­aware of that and what­ev­er tran­spired there. I said there was a screen­ing and what­ev­er was the de­ci­sion of the screen­ing com­mit­tee, that would stand.

Q: But you spoke to the prime min­is­ter about what had tran­spired about him not telling the truth about where he lived—not in Co­corite, but rather Curepe in Ram­goolie Trace, what did the prime min­is­ter tell you when you had that dis­cus­sion with him?

A: Mr Bas­sant, I re­al­ly don’t think I should in­dulge in this type of con­ver­sa­tion. I re­al­ly do not think so. Some­thing tran­spired last year, the screen­ing com­mit­tee...we are a 63-year-old par­ty. The screen­ing com­mit­tee did their job and I stand by the de­ci­sion of the screen­ing com­mit­tee.

Q: Most def­i­nite­ly and I am not negat­ing that, I am just try­ing to get clar­i­ty on the in­ci­dent based on the record­ing that was sent to us.

A: I think what­ev­er clar­i­fi­ca­tion you need, take it up with the screen­ing com­mit­tee.

Q: Fair enough. Is it be­cause the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty did not want him or be­cause he lied about where he lived?

A: I will not an­swer that ques­tion.

The new chair­man of the con­stituen­cy Wen­dell Stephen, who was sit­ting be­side Mc­Don­ald, said, “Dwayne O’Con­nor of­fered him­self as a can­di­date, and I com­mend him for that. He re­mains a sup­port­er, es­pe­cial­ly a friend of Port-of-Spain South and we ap­pre­ci­ate that. He has done a lot for this con­stituen­cy and the peo­ple he rep­re­sents, and we ap­pre­ci­ate that there will be oth­er changes.”

Mc­Don­ald in­ter­ject­ed, “Let’s get on with the show, af­ter all, isn’t that’s why you are here? Let’s stick to that, please. This is in the in­ter­est of the con­stituents, the poor peo­ple be­hind the bridge.”

QUES­TIONS FOR THE PRIME MIN­IS­TER

GML sent sev­er­al ques­tions to Dr Row­ley via What­sApp on Tues­day but got no re­sponse.

Here are some of the ques­tions sent to the PM.

1. Was it that Ms Mc­Don­ald was bow­ing to the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty or the re­quest of gang­sters in­stead of en­dors­ing Mr O’Con­nor who had been cho­sen pre­vi­ous­ly?

2. What did Ms Mc­Don­ald tell you when you spoke about the sit­u­a­tion since at the be­gin­ning of the record­ing she in­di­cat­ed she had spo­ken to you and you had agreed with her de­ci­sion?

3. Are you sat­is­fied that re­plac­ing O’Con­nor was the right de­ci­sion? Was that done be­cause he failed to fol­low pro­to­col al­though he jus­ti­fied his res­i­den­tial ad­dress with ca­ble bills in Co­corite or be­cause the Sea Lots res­i­dents did not want an “in­former”? Who was re­al­ly call­ing the shots in this case? The Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty or the PNM screen­ing com­mit­tee?

Flash­back: Young on crim­i­nal el­e­ments

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­cent­ly al­leged that top UNC mem­bers were con­spir­ing with crim­i­nal el­e­ments that were con­nect­ed to the Life­S­port project and al­so claimed that they were fu­elling the up­surge in mur­ders with­in the coun­try.

While those al­le­ga­tions have been ve­he­ment­ly de­nied by the Op­po­si­tion, the is­sue of Mc­Don­ald’s per­ceived re­la­tion­ship with com­mu­ni­ty leader from the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty Cedric “Burkie” Burke has been raised.

There was con­tro­ver­sy when Burke was al­lowed in­to the Pres­i­dent’s House in 2017 at the swear­ing of Mc­Don­ald in her sec­ond in­car­na­tion as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. The pub­lic out­cry fol­low­ing this fi­as­co forced Dr Row­ley to fire Mc­Don­ald from her min­is­te­r­i­al post three days lat­er.

In 2018 she was re­hired as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and last year was sacked af­ter she was slapped with sev­er­al charges in­clud­ing mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the State.

Tune in to CNC3 at 7 pm on Mon­day for more of this sto­ry.