Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s lead­er­ship yes­ter­day con­tin­ued its res­o­lu­tion process con­cern­ing is­sues in San Fer­nan­do East by meet­ing with sev­er­al con­stituen­cy units, in­clud­ing MP Bri­an Man­ning.

“I’ll be go­ing. I’m a loy­al PNM mem­ber. It is the PNM or noth­ing for me. It’s time to re­build San Fer­nan­do East,” Man­ning said, con­firm­ing his at­ten­dance be­fore the meet­ing.

Amid the pro­ceed­ings last night, at­ten­dees said the meet­ing was peace­ful as the res­o­lu­tion process con­tin­ued. Man­ning sat at the head ta­ble with lead­er­ship of­fi­cials, spoke sev­er­al times and there was no con­tention, they said.

At 7.30 pm, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who had ear­li­er ex­pressed hope that Man­ning would at­tend, briefly told the T&T Guardian: “It was a very pro­duc­tive, or­der­ly meet­ing. We look for­ward to more pro­duc­tive ses­sions with San Fer­nan­do East in the com­ing weeks.”

Yes­ter­day’s meet­ing was the lat­est in the lead­er­ship’s ef­forts to ad­dress is­sues in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, which arose af­ter com­plaints were made to the lead­er­ship in June by ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is and Man­ning.

Last night, Man­ning faced lead­er­ship of­fi­cials and San Fer­nan­do East col­leagues for the first time af­ter Gon­za­les and oth­er lead­er­ship of­fi­cials on Mon­day pub­licly and stern­ly cau­tioned him about his re­cent state­ments on the is­sue.

The mat­ter pri­mar­i­ly con­cerns Man­ning’s state­ments af­ter he con­veyed to the lead­er­ship is­sues raised by con­stituen­cy mem­bers re­gard­ing the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups, al­leged cor­rup­tion re­port­ed in the me­dia and Alex­is’ al­leged modus operan­di.

Alex­is made a com­plaint to the lead­er­ship be­fore Man­ning’s, but its con­tents have not been dis­closed.

An in­ves­ti­gat­ing team head­ed by PNM deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu probed the is­sue, found no ev­i­dence to sup­port the al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and made rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing that Man­ning’s con­cerns about par­ty group ver­i­fi­ca­tion be ad­dressed first. Those rec­om­men­da­tions are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

Last week, Man­ning and the Alex­is-led ex­ec­u­tive clashed in sep­a­rate state­ments on the is­sue, de­spite Gon­za­les’ warn­ing against pub­lic vent­ing. Sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers sub­se­quent­ly re­signed, cit­ing a lack of knowl­edge of the state­ment.

Last Sun­day, lead­er­ship of­fi­cials met with the ex­ec­u­tive. Man­ning, who was in­vit­ed, did not at­tend.
The re­main­ing San Fer­nan­do East ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, in­clud­ing Alex­is, re­signed on Mon­day.

How­ev­er, on Mon­day, af­ter Man­ning re­it­er­at­ed his state­ments on ra­dio, Gon­za­les and oth­er lead­er­ship of­fi­cials pub­licly took him to task, deny­ing his claim of in­ac­tion on the mat­ter and warn­ing about con­duct and re­spect for PNM process­es, with a veiled hint of pos­si­ble dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion. The PNM Women’s League al­so re­buked Man­ning.

Gon­za­les said the lead­er­ship would meet with San Fer­nan­do East’s con­stituen­cy group yes­ter­day to con­tin­ue work­ing on the is­sue.

The group com­pris­es ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, del­e­gates from the 31 San Fer­nan­do East par­ty groups, mem­bers of the Women’s and Youth arms, and ex of­fi­cio mem­bers, in­clud­ing coun­cil­lors and al­der­men from the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and the MP.

The en­tire lead­er­ship team was sched­uled to at­tend the meet­ing: leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, deputy lead­ers Bood­hu, Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis and Colm Im­bert, deputy chair­man Dr Amery Browne, and Women’s League chair­man Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

Be­fore the meet­ing, Guardian Me­dia asked PNM leader Beck­les whether she hoped the meet­ing might fur­ther res­o­lu­tion of the is­sue.

“We will see,” Beck­les said.

Gon­za­les al­so said: “We’ve made it clear all along that we’re com­mit­ted to work­ing with Mr Man­ning, Ms Alex­is and the con­stituen­cy to re­solve this is­sue and we’re ac­tive­ly do­ing our work to­wards a pos­i­tive out­come. Ex­pe­di­tious­ly.”

Oth­ers at the meet­ing told Guardian Me­dia it was very peace­ful, with a “great turnout.” Mem­bers asked gen­er­al ques­tions re­gard­ing the man­age­ment of par­ty groups, but lit­tle was said about the im­passe, as the lead­er­ship gave them a full up­date on the work done to in­ves­ti­gate the com­plaints by Man­ning and Alex­is.

Last night, sources close to Man­ning said: “His sole in­ter­est in pur­su­ing these mat­ters has sim­ply been to en­sure that PNM’s proud record and in­tegri­ty are main­tained. His cause has al­ways been on­ly PNM.”

Gon­za­les said Beck­les would speak at to­mor­row’s PNM me­dia con­fer­ence.

His­to­ry be­ing made in San Fer­nan­do East – may­or

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris, in a post on Mon­day, said his­to­ry was be­ing made in San Fer­nan­do East.

“I con­tin­ue to of­fer no com­ment in the pub­lic on any mat­ters to fu­el what’s be­ing dis­played in pub­lic. This didn’t hap­pen overnight, and I’m glad the par­ty un­der­stands, and the ex­ec­u­tive should con­sid­er, that we nev­er healed from the death of my late god­fa­ther Patrick Man­ning in San Fer­nan­do East,” Par­ris added.

“Let democ­ra­cy pre­vail as the PNM was found­ed as a study group on 16B Roy­al Road in the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do East and was called the Batchacks, a study group of in­tel­lec­tu­als with mem­bers such as John Don­awa, Arnold Man­ning, Er­ic Williams, Win­ston Ma­habir and Ger­ard Mon­tano.

“The lega­cy of our great par­ty and, by ex­ten­sion, our con­stituen­cy start­ed here, and con­tin­ued with John Com­mis­siong, Patrick Man­ning and Roger Par­ris.”