Mark Bas­sant

“I have noth­ing to hide.”

That was the frank com­ment from Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath when ques­tioned yes­ter­day about al­le­ga­tions he was the sub­ject of a pos­si­ble po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Padarath left the coun­try on March 21, one day be­fore Trinidad and To­ba­go closed its bor­ders due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, to trav­el to the US to be with his adopt­ed daugh­ter.

Over the past few weeks, how­ev­er, al­le­ga­tions sur­faced on so­cial me­dia that he was the pos­si­ble tar­get of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and a home con­nect­ed to one of his rel­a­tives had been searched as part of an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Padarath said this was far from the truth.

“Not to my knowl­edge. I am al­most cer­tain that maybe those ques­tions can be di­rect­ed to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, but no au­thor­i­ty has con­tact­ed me or ad­vised me that I, Bar­ry Padarath, is the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” Padarath said.

“What I do know is that I will not be used as a des­per­ate dis­trac­tion by the PNM. I said from day one I would not let them use the cir­cum­stances of my child’s birth as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball. I have noth­ing to hide!

“I will al­so pro­tect my child and fam­i­ly from the PNM witch hunt and agents of the PNM look­ing for a dis­trac­tion from their own po­lit­i­cal woes. It is the sil­ly sea­son and I ex­pect to hear many oth­er things. As far as I am aware, I have not been told by any au­thor­i­ty about any in­ves­ti­ga­tion about my­self.”

He said he al­so had no knowl­edge of any­one search­ing a house of his rel­a­tive.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to a ques­tion by Guardian Me­dia on whether Padarath was the sub­ject of any po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith would on­ly say, “It would be im­prop­er for me to state who is, or is not be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.”

Mean­while, Padarath al­so said he would like to re­turn home but not­ed he could not due to his daugh­ter’s sta­tus. “The sit­u­a­tion is when I left the coun­try, my child is an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen and was not per­mit­ted to come to Trinidad and the bor­ders were be­ing closed. Those cir­cum­stances have not changed and that is the rea­son I have not ap­plied for an ex­emp­tion,” Padarath point­ed out.

On­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als who have been grant­ed ex­emp­tions by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young can re­turn to the coun­try at this time.

But Padarath said he re­mained fo­cussed on the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions and has al­ready thrown his hat in­to the nom­i­na­tion ring for the Princes Town seat.

“The Princes Town con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive has giv­en me the nod and sup­port to re­turn as the MP in terms of my can­di­da­cy,” he said.

“So I have filed nom­i­na­tion for the con­stituen­cy of Princes Town. The par­ty, I am ad­vised, has been us­ing the tech­nol­o­gy of Zoom and oth­er plat­forms to do the screen­ing. So I am hope­ful if I am not back in time for the screen­ing that would be a medi­um they utilise.

“How­ev­er, I know there are many tal­ent­ed per­sons in the UNC. My sup­port con­tin­ues to re­main for my po­lit­i­cal leader and my par­ty, re­gard­less of the out­come be­cause no seat is be­hold­en to any one per­son. So while I re­main hope­ful, I am al­so re­mind­ed that this is a process and that many per­sons with­in the par­ty I am sure may have of­fered them­selves.”

He dis­missed any sug­ges­tion that his ab­sence from his con­stituen­cy equalled neg­li­gence.

“I am in con­stant con­tact and many of my con­stituents know this for a fact be­cause I deal with them on a dai­ly ba­sis whether it is through Zoom, Face­book, or What­sapp in terms of bring­ing ser­vices and de­liv­ery to them,” he said.

Padarath said he was al­so been en­gag­ing with small and medi­um busi­ness­es on how to over­come the so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact COVID-19 has left in its path.

“I do not feel dis­con­nect­ed from my con­stituen­cy at all. I think I am one of those MPs who have demon­strat­ed even in my ab­sence that I am very hands-on in bring­ing a mea­sure of re­lief.”