Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment be­lieves the po­lice should get in­volved fol­low­ing cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions made by San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning against mem­bers of his own Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ar­gu­ing that the claims should not be over­shad­owed by the par­ty’s deep­en­ing in­ter­nal tur­moil.

While much of the pub­lic at­ten­tion has cen­tred on Man­ning’s in­creas­ing­ly bit­ter bat­tle with the PNM lead­er­ship and ques­tions about the sta­bil­i­ty and di­rec­tion of the Op­po­si­tion par­ty, Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters say the pub­lic should pay clos­er at­ten­tion to al­le­ga­tions of pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing be­ing made by a se­nior PNM mem­ber.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen told Guardian Me­dia that Man­ning’s claims should not sim­ply be treat­ed as in­ter­nal PNM busi­ness.

Man­ning has ac­cused the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader of be­ing un­able or un­will­ing to deal with what he de­scribed as a “cor­rupt and crim­i­nal el­e­ment” with­in the par­ty.

He has al­so al­leged that some mem­bers of the now-for­mer San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive be­came “overnight mil­lion­aires” and raised ques­tions about con­tracts al­leged­ly re­ceived by for­mer con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

Man­ning claimed Alex­is re­ceived mil­lions of dol­lars in CEPEP and HDC con­tracts and al­so ques­tioned prop­er­ty he al­leged she ac­quired in Flori­da. The al­le­ga­tions have not been in­de­pen­dent­ly es­tab­lished.

Padarath said Man­ning was now pub­licly re­veal­ing what the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had pre­vi­ous­ly al­leged about the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Man­ning is ex­pos­ing what we al­ready know about the feed­ing fren­zy and cor­rup­tion in CEPEP that took place un­der the PNM,” Padarath said.

The Gov­ern­ment had pre­vi­ous­ly cit­ed what it de­scribed as a long­stand­ing cul­ture of cor­rup­tion and abuse with­in CEPEP as one of the main rea­sons for shut­ting down the pro­gramme af­ter tak­ing of­fice.

Padarath ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of fo­cus­ing its re­sponse on Man­ning rather than con­fronting the sub­stance of the al­le­ga­tions be­ing made by its own MP.

“What is alarm­ing, deeply con­cern­ing but not en­tire­ly sur­pris­ing is that in­stead of ad­dress­ing those is­sues, the weak, floun­der­ing lead­er­ship of the PNM has cho­sen to shoot the mes­sen­ger in­stead of deal­ing with the prob­lem,” he said.

Padarath said Man­ning should now take what­ev­er in­for­ma­tion he pos­sess­es to law en­force­ment.

“If Mr Man­ning is se­ri­ous about his con­cerns, he should take it to the Po­lice,” Padarath said.

He ac­cused the PNM of hypocrisy, say­ing the par­ty had pre­vi­ous­ly called for po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to less se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sies, in­clud­ing the Par­lia­ment mi­cro­phone is­sue.

Padarath claimed the par­ty was in­stead turn­ing its at­ten­tion on Man­ning be­cause he had pub­licly bro­ken ranks.

“The PNM is on­ly wag­ing war on Man­ning be­cause he has bro­ken their cosa nos­tra pact,” Padarath said.

Ameen al­so be­lieves Man­ning’s al­le­ga­tions should at­tract the at­ten­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“There is a col­lo­qui­al say­ing, ‘when fish tell you there is lob­ster in the ocean, be­lieve him’,” Ameen said.

“The UNC has been speak­ing about the cor­rup­tion and nepo­tism of the PNM. What is be­ing fur­ther ex­posed is the cor­rup­tion and feed­ing fren­zy we spoke about. You are now hear­ing it from the horse’s mouth.”

Ameen said the PNM lead­er­ship’s em­pha­sis on keep­ing the dis­pute with­in the par­ty was trou­bling, ar­gu­ing that al­le­ga­tions of pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing should in­stead be prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

She ac­cused the PNM of adopt­ing a “don’t wash PNM’s dirty laun­dry in pub­lic” ap­proach, which she de­scribed as be­ing “tan­ta­mount to cov­er-up.”

“Any­one who has any knowl­edge of fraud or cor­rup­tion should re­port it to the au­thor­i­ties,” she said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that she was not fa­mil­iar with the po­lice pro­to­cols gov­ern­ing such mat­ters, Ameen said she be­lieved al­le­ga­tions of that na­ture be­ing pub­licly made should at­tract the at­ten­tion of law en­force­ment.

“It is my be­lief that once these types of al­le­ga­tions come in­to the pub­lic light, TTPS should have an oblig­a­tion to in­ves­ti­gate,” Ameen said.

“The PNM should wel­come any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion if they have noth­ing to fear rather than try to sweep it un­der the car­pet.”

The calls for po­lice in­ter­ven­tion come as the PNM is al­ready fac­ing po­lice scruti­ny, with in­ves­ti­ga­tors prob­ing mat­ters sur­round­ing the con­struc­tion of the par­ty’s new Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters.

Mean­while, on Mon­day, the PNM lead­er­ship in­ten­si­fied its crit­i­cism of Man­ning over his pub­lic state­ments.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les ac­cused Man­ning of mak­ing in­ac­cu­rate state­ments that un­fair­ly cast as­per­sions on the par­ty, its lead­er­ship and mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy. He al­so warned that com­plaints had been re­ceived from par­ty mem­bers about Man­ning’s con­duct and could ul­ti­mate­ly trig­ger dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings.

The PNM has main­tained that Man­ning’s con­cerns were not ig­nored and that an in­ter­nal in­quiry was es­tab­lished to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints aris­ing from the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy.