Deputy UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s call for an apol­o­gy from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is noth­ing but a dis­trac­tion.

In fact, Mooni­lal said if any­thing the Prime Min­is­ter’s be­hav­iour war­rant­ed fur­ther “re­buke.”

On Fri­day, the Prime Min­is­ter broke his si­lence on the “hot mic” in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Port-of-Spain North/ St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young. The En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter was rep­ri­mand­ed for his “deroga­to­ry,” “ho­mo­pho­bic” and “misog­y­nis­tic” com­ments by House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George in Par­lia­ment last Thurs­day af­ter the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee com­plet­ed its busi­ness and Par­lia­ment re­con­vened to pass the 2025 Bud­get. He was in­struct­ed to apol­o­gise and Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde ac­cept­ed it, al­low­ing him to es­cape the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee which the Op­po­si­tion had called for.

The Prime Min­is­ter said Fri­day that while that mat­ter had been dealt with, he was hope­ful for an apol­o­gy for al­le­ga­tions of rape made against him and his fa­ther by the Op­po­si­tion when it held the seat of gov­ern­ment in March 2015.

Row­ley said, “It has raised my hopes that one day, the Mem­ber for Siparia will apol­o­gise to me and my fam­i­ly for her role in plac­ing on Hansard that my fa­ther and I are rapists, and my po­lit­i­cal col­leagues, se­nior mem­bers of the PNM, are en­gaged in pae­dophil­ia, the heinous crime of sex­u­al­ly abus­ing chil­dren.”

While ef­forts yes­ter­day to con­tact UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar were un­suc­cess­ful, her deputy Mooni­lal hint­ed that an apol­o­gy may not be forth­com­ing.

He ques­tioned why the Prime Min­is­ter re­mained silent on Young’s com­ments for so long. He said this spoke vol­umes.

“He now choos­es to dis­tract at­ten­tion by rais­ing a ten-year-old mat­ter that every­one un­der the sun com­ment­ed on be­fore. It is left for the rea­son­able on­look­er to be­lieve that Row­ley con­dones Young’s state­ments. In fact no elect­ed PNM mem­ber or par­ty of­fi­cial has con­demned Young’s di­ar­rhoea of words.”

Mooni­lal not­ed that the in­ci­dent should not be viewed light­ly by the pop­u­la­tion.

“The PNM Women’s League sup­port­ed Young and fo­cused on Drag­on Gas. It was left to the un­elect­ed Speak­er to chide MP Young while the Prime Min­is­ter fumed in a cor­ner. They wig­gled him out of the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. Soon Young will part­ner Row­ley for their next glob­al jaunt and laugh at the elec­torate,” he said.