KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis has dis­missed al­le­ga­tions of col­lu­sion made by for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tor Anil Roberts, stat­ing that such claims have been cir­cu­lat­ing for sev­er­al years.

Roberts al­leged that Nar­cis, as head of the EBC, has main­tained a close friend­ship with Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly since their time at St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 years ago. He fur­ther claimed that Nar­cis is a staunch sup­port­er of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), at­tends par­ty func­tions, takes pho­tographs with PNM min­is­ters, and proud­ly wears red.

Re­spond­ing to the al­le­ga­tions, Nar­cis ac­knowl­edged her school con­nec­tion with Gads­by-Dol­ly but em­pha­sised that this has no bear­ing on her im­par­tial­i­ty or abil­i­ty to per­form her du­ties.

“My time at sec­ondary school co­in­cides with the time the sit­ting Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion at­tend­ed, so we were school­mates. I do know ... I will not de­ny that,” she said.

Nar­cis chal­lenged Roberts to spec­i­fy which PNM event she al­leged­ly at­tend­ed, clar­i­fy­ing that a pho­to­graph he ref­er­enced was tak­en at an In­de­pen­dence Day func­tion host­ed by the for­mer pres­i­dent at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts.

She ex­plained that the event in­clud­ed oth­er pub­lic of­fi­cials and that she had sim­ply posed for a pic­ture with her for­mer school­mate.