Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bissess­sar says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's lies about the avail­abil­i­ty of the Sag­ba re­port has been de­bunked by his col­league Mrs Camille Ro­bion­son Reg­is. Ac­cord­ing to the Op­po­si­tion Leader, Ms Reg­is re­ferred to the re­port in par­lia­ment on No­vem­ber 19th 2002. 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Op­po­si­tion Leader:  

At a press con­fer­ence on Sun­day 22nd May, 2022, a re­porter asked Kei­th Row­ley to com­ment on his now de­bunked claims that the Sab­ga re­port was hid­den de­spite there be­ing nu­mer­ous ref­er­ences in Par­lia­ment to it.

In­stead of ac­cept­ing that he mis­led the coun­try about the Sab­ga re­port in or­der to de­flect from the Ju­dith Jones Re­port, he at­tempt­ed to again at­tack Mr Robert Sab­ga. This was a des­per­ate at­tempt to evade ques­tions re­gard­ing the al­le­ga­tions of a long­stand­ing pae­dophile ring op­er­at­ing with­in the PNM.

I wish to re­mind Row­ley of the words of his cur­rent gov­ern­ment col­league Mrs Robin­son-Reg­is as record­ed in the Hansard as it per­tains to the avail­abil­i­ty and use of the Sab­ga re­port. In the de­bate on the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty (Amdt) Bill on Tues­day No­vem­ber 19th 2002, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is is quot­ed on the Hansard as fol­low; Hon. C. Robin­son-Reg­is:

All right, so you un­der­stand what Shawn, who was adopt­ed by the po­lit­i­cal leader of your par­ty, had to go through. [In­ter­rup­tion] Mr. Vice-Pres­i­dent, may I al­so say that every ef­fort will be made un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion, as we im­ple­ment this very im­por­tant piece of leg­is­la­tion to en­sure that chil­dren are, in fact, well tak­en care of dur­ing our time in of­fice, and that they are by no means sub­ject to ex­ploita­tion. [Desk thump­ing]

Be­fore I close, Mr. Vice-Pres­i­dent, let me make the point that in re­la­tion to the is­sue that was raised by Sen. Prof. De­osaran re­gard­ing the re­port in re­la­tion to the fos­ter homes and that is­sue of abuse, be­tween the pe­ri­od 1991—1995, there were some at­tempts made to try to put ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ments in place in or­der to train peo­ple in the prop­er care of chil­dren. In fact, that par­tic­u­lar Sab­ga Re­port was used by the then Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment to ex­am­ine all the is­sues as they re­lat­ed to the care of chil­dren.

The is­sues that were raised in that re­port were very re­veal­ing in cir­cum­stances where our so­ci­ety had de­pend­ed on a num­ber of fos­ter homes to en­sure care for our young chil­dren and for chil­dren who had suf­fered aban­don­ment by their fam­i­lies. That re­port did, in fact, in­form quite a num­ber of the poli­cies that were de­vel­oped dur­ing that pe­ri­od, es­pe­cial­ly as they re­lat­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child.

Mr. Vice-Pres­i­dent, let me give the as­sur­ance to all Sen­a­tors that we on this side will, in fact, do all in our pow­er and, in­deed I think, the sub­stance of the bud­get that was pre­sent­ed and, in fact, our vi­sion for Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­di­cates that ours is an in­ten­tion to en­sure that the so­ci­ety in which we live is a so­ci­ety that looks at the in­ter­est, not on­ly of chil­dren, but of all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Mr. Vice-Pres­i­dent, may I say thank you to those Sen­a­tors who did, in fact, con­tribute to this very im­por­tant de­bate. With those words, I beg to move that a Bill to amend the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Act, 2000 be now read a sec­ond time.

As seen on the Hansard, Camille Robin­son Reg­is con­firmed that the Sab­ga re­port was in fact a pub­licly avail­able doc­u­ment and that its rec­om­men­da­tions were adopt­ed by the UNC and led to the cre­ation of the fol­low­ing leg­is­la­tion: The Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty Bill, 1999; The Chil­dren (Amend­ment) Bill, 1999; The Adop­tion of Chil­dren Bill, 1999; The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Chil­dren) Bill, 1999; The Chil­dren's Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences, Fos­ter Homes and Nurs­eries Bill, 1999. Kei­th Row­ley has been ex­posed as a liar through the words of his own PNM col­league Mrs Camille Robin­son Reg­is.

The Gov­ern­ment must now an­swer: • Who are the high-rank­ing PNM mem­bers who are ac­cused of op­er­at­ing a long­stand­ing pae­dophile ring with­in the PNM. • What is be­ing done about the cur­rent Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port? • Where is the for­mer di­rec­tor of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty and for­mer PNM can­di­date Nico­la Har­vey- Mitchell? Why has Nico­la Har­vey-Mitchell not been ques­tioned by the po­lice re­gard­ing the events lead­ing up to the deaths of Sime­on Daniel and An­to­nio Fran­cois? • Why has Ayana Web­ster Roy not ex­plained sit­ting on this Jus­tice Jones re­port for five months? The coun­try is not go­ing to al­low this Gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue ly­ing in or­der to pro­tect pae­dophiles with­in the PNM.