Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith has chas­tised Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, af­ter he was again made the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, and is call­ing on the PM to call elec­tion now.

In a What­sApp post on Sun­day, Grif­fith said, “Mr Lan­date. Time to seek a new man­date - Call elec­tion now! From the man who is al­ways point­ing fin­gers and claim­ing some­one is a crim­i­nal, one thing I can take pride in is that I’ve nev­er been un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions.”

“I have nev­er been in­ves­ti­gat­ed, nor have I ever been a per­son of in­ter­est to the po­lice in a crim­i­nal of­fence in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Kei­th—Can you boast of the same?” he added.

Grif­fith was re­spond­ing to a Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive re­port which re­vealed he In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was ini­ti­at­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Row­ley sur­round­ing four con­tracts award­ed to com­pa­nies owned by his friend Al­lan Warn­er.

Row­ley, in re­sponse, said the com­mis­sion was seek­ing to tar­nish his name for its own gain.

The PM added: “Clear­ly, the com­mis­sion knows some­thing that no­body else knows, so I await the out­come of their ex­pe­di­tion. It is clear that your ap­proach to me now, and the plac­ing of this mat­ter in­to the pub­lic do­main, is the ori­gin and in­tent of this at­tack on my char­ac­ter, with­out a shred of ev­i­dence to sup­port the con­cerns of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.”

The com­mis­sion said it act­ed on its own vo­li­tion from pub­lic re­ports to in­ves­ti­gate Row­ley.

This came af­ter it cleared him of breach­ing the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act re­gard­ing his de­c­la­ra­tion of a town­house in To­ba­go built and sold to him by Warn­er. The com­mis­sion, in con­clud­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, said while a $480,000 dif­fer­ence be­tween the sale price and what Row­ley paid was re­gard­ed as a gift, it be­lieved the gift was not grant­ed be­cause he was Prime Min­is­ter.

Mean­while, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo yes­ter­day said Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was to have ad­dressed this lat­est is­sue at their pave­ment Re­port last night.

He added that it was part of a pat­tern that goes back to Lan­date. The ref­er­ence by both Grif­fith and Meighoo to Lan­date stemmed from the first in­ves­ti­ga­tion the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion launched in­to Row­ley in 2004. The Op­po­si­tion al­leged then that ma­te­ri­als from the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal were si­phoned and sent to Row­ley’s wife’s de­vel­op­ment at Lan­date, Ma­son Hall, To­ba­go.

As a re­sult of the al­le­ga­tion, then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning ini­ti­at­ed a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the is­sue and re­ferred it to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Row­ley sued the com­mis­sion and won af­ter the High Court ruled the com­mis­sion act­ed in bad faith by sub­mit­ting its file to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions with­out giv­ing him a chance to re­spond. An­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion was done when the then com­mis­sion re­signed. Row­ley was lat­er cleared of any wrong­do­ing in the sec­ond probe.

Meighoo added, “They have the au­dac­i­ty to speak about cor­rup­tion. No one is more cor­rupt than the PNM. They have im­pov­er­ished our coun­try since 956, drag­ging us down from the sta­tus of Sin­ga­pore and Hong Kong, who we were rich­er than at in­de­pen­dence.”