Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der is re­ject­ing claims cir­cu­lat­ing on­line sug­gest­ing his in­volve­ment in a traf­fic-re­lat­ed in­ci­dent in­volv­ing his son.

In a pub­lic state­ment yes­ter­day, Alexan­der de­scribed the al­le­ga­tions as “fab­ri­ca­tions” and “psy­chosis added to a joke,” stress­ing he has nev­er used his po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence for per­son­al gain.

Ad­dress­ing the so­cial me­dia claims in his state­ment, Alexan­der said, “If my son ever puts him­self in a po­si­tion where he re­ceives a tick­et, he was raised to take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Any­one claim­ing oth­er­wise is us­ing my name and voice to seek per­son­al recog­ni­tion.”

He fur­ther chal­lenged any­one mak­ing such claims to pub­licly de­fend them in a live fo­rum, as­sert­ing that no po­lice of­fi­cer has con­tact­ed him re­gard­ing the mat­ter.

Alexan­der em­pha­sised his com­mit­ment to truth and ac­count­abil­i­ty, not­ing that while he could pur­sue le­gal ad­vice, he is con­fi­dent in ad­dress­ing the mat­ter in the pub­lic sphere. He con­clud­ed by urg­ing cit­i­zens and com­men­ta­tors to fo­cus on gen­uine is­sues rather than cir­cu­lat­ing false­hoods.

The min­is­ter com­ments stemmed from claims his son was pulled over by po­lice on Fri­day and he called the min­is­ter, who then asked the po­lice of­fi­cer for his name and rank.

Alexan­der re­called that in his ear­li­er years as an ad­vi­sor to a min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, he nev­er sought spe­cial treat­ment or con­tracts, and has con­sis­tent­ly used his po­si­tion to as­sist oth­ers rather than ad­vo­cate for him­self. He not­ed that his rep­u­ta­tion among col­leagues and of­fi­cials across all po­lit­i­cal lines is built on re­spect for his pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to Joshua Phillip, the min­is­ter’s son, who al­so said the re­ports were not true but of­fered no oth­er com­ment when pressed fur­ther.

Ef­forts to con­tact Alexan­der via phone yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.