Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

In­cum­bent MP for San Juan/Barataria Sad­dam Ho­sein has is­sued a blis­ter­ing re­sponse to for­mer prime min­is­ter and leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s com­ments fol­low­ing Ho­sein’s ex­po­sure of what he calls a “con­tract ca­bal” op­er­at­ing with­in the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (RDC).

Ho­sein held a press con­fer­ence on Fri­day to raise con­cerns about the RDC.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, he said he re­ceived Row­ley’s re­marks—made on the PNM plat­form in San Juan that same Fri­day—with “con­ster­na­tion, alarm, shock, and yes, even com­ic re­lief.”

Ho­sein took is­sue with what he called Row­ley’s “ob­ses­sive and frankly dis­turb­ing” re­marks about him. “It’s creepy that a man old enough to be my grand­fa­ther is that fo­cused on how I walk,” he said. “Is this what he’s re­duced to in re­tire­ment? Pet­ty ob­ser­va­tions in­stead of se­ri­ous lead­er­ship?”

He said, “Dr Row­ley’s trade­mark bul­ly­ing and blus­ter won’t stop me from do­ing what is right. His at­tempt to dis­cred­it me with child­ish per­son­al at­tacks is noth­ing more than a des­per­ate smoke­screen to dis­tract from the re­al is­sue: the ex­is­tence of en­trenched nepo­tism and favouritism at the RDC.”

The MP slammed what he de­scribed as a “laugh­able and trag­ic” re­sponse from Row­ley, es­pe­cial­ly in light of what he claims is mount­ing doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence of con­tract ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

“Rather than ad­dress­ing the de­tailed rev­e­la­tions I’ve put for­ward, Dr Row­ley prefers to at­tack the mes­sen­ger with ven­omous and emp­ty rhetoric.”

Re­fer­ring to Dr Row­ley’s sug­ges­tion that he should “go to hell,” Ho­sein didn’t hold back, “Let me tell Dr Row­ley, I don’t have to go far in his Trinidad and To­ba­go to find hell. Un­der his gov­er­nance, the poor, work­ing class, and un­der­priv­i­leged have been con­demned to a dai­ly strug­gle. That is the hell he built.”

Ho­sein al­so posed a se­ries of point­ed ques­tions, de­mand­ing full trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing con­tracts al­leged­ly award­ed to com­pa­nies linked to fam­i­lies with po­lit­i­cal ties.

He fur­ther raised ques­tions about pos­si­ble state re­sources used on a pri­vate prop­er­ty. “Dr Row­ley must an­swer these ques­tions,” Ho­sein in­sist­ed.

“Un­til then, he should con­duct him­self with the dig­ni­ty be­fit­ting some­one who once held the of­fice of prime min­is­ter.”

On Fri­day, Ho­sein called on RDC CEO Ja­son Kissoon to break his si­lence.

Ho­sein re­mind­ed the pub­lic of the big­ger pic­ture: “This isn’t about me. It’s about the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who de­serve an­swers—not in­sults. Dr Row­ley does not have the moral au­thor­i­ty to send any­one to hell when he has al­ready plunged this coun­try in­to one.”

BOX

‘I will ig­nore his per­sis­tent non­sense’

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley said, “If Sad­dam Ho­sein has gen­er­at­ed all these ques­tions, then he should have the an­swers for you.

“Is that the same per­son who spent three years mak­ing all kinds of friv­o­lous ac­cu­sa­tions against me at the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion with his lies about me, my fam­i­ly, and the Warn­ers in To­ba­go?

“Clear­ly, this is a man who spends a lot of his time search­ing for some­thing in­ter­est­ing to make his own sor­ry life worth­while. I will ig­nore all his per­sis­tent non­sense un­til my lawyers ad­vise me that it’s time to act.”