The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour has found that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has breached the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct on two more oc­ca­sions.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the coun­cil said it met on Mon­day and con­sid­ered two com­plaints that were sub­mit­ted by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

It said the first com­plaint re­lat­ed to the lan­guage used by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on the PNM plat­form at a meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do on Ju­ly 15.

The coun­cil stat­ed that in the Ju­ly 15 in­ci­dent, “The UNC claimed that Dr Row­ley’s state­ments were based on a false and un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed al­le­ga­tion which was in­flam­ma­to­ry, di­vi­sive, and had the po­ten­tial of in­cit­ing vi­o­lence.”

The coun­cil said a re­view of the record­ing not­ed that Dr Row­ley did not name any par­ty or per­son, but based on the pol­i­cy pro­pos­al be­ing dis­cussed, it was clear that ref­er­ence was be­ing made to the UNC and its fe­male leader.

“In mak­ing the said crit­i­cisms of poli­cies as ad­vo­cat­ed by the UNC, Dr Row­ley went on to al­lude to events which have not been linked to the UNC, and, as such, those state­ments can be deemed to be un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed al­le­ga­tions, and this is in breach of the code,” it said.

It said con­tin­u­ing this part of his speech, Dr Row­ley, again with­out call­ing any name, but still re­fer­ring to the pol­i­cy pro­posed by the UNC, spoke in deroga­to­ry terms of a po­lit­i­cal leader.

“This is un­ac­cept­able and to that end, he is in clear breach of the clause of the code which reads: Not make false or defam­a­to­ry al­le­ga­tions in print or speech in con­nec­tion with an elec­tion in re­spect of a par­ty, its can­di­dates, rep­re­sen­ta­tives or mem­bers,” it said.

This is the sec­ond oc­ca­sion that a com­plaint on the PM has come be­fore the coun­cil.

On the first oc­ca­sion on Ju­ly 7, the coun­cil found that the PM used lan­guage that was in­sen­si­tive and in­ap­pro­pri­ate dur­ing a cam­paign meet­ing in St James.

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith had re­port­ed the Ju­ly 7 in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Row­ley to the coun­cil.

The coun­cil had stat­ed that hav­ing re­viewed the speech made by the Prime Min­is­ter in St James, it found “the lan­guage used was clear­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­sen­si­tive”.

Mean­while, in the sec­ond com­plaint from the coun­cil yes­ter­day, ref­er­ence was made to the ad­ver­tis­ing fly­ers of two PNM can­di­dates in the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

The com­plaint by the UNC is that these PNM can­di­dates are ad­ver­tis­ing them­selves as hav­ing the abil­i­ty to as­sist or fa­cil­i­tate ac­cess to state-con­trolled grants.

“Two fly­ers were sup­plied to the coun­cil, and while one speaks to ‘of­fer­ing as­sis­tance to the pub­lic’, the oth­er is more bold and trou­bling since, un­der the can­di­date’s name, it sim­ply states “Ap­ply Now–Grants avail­able.”

The coun­cil said that the fly­er goes on to list items such as ‘food card,’ ‘house wiring,’ ‘HDC hous­ing,’ ‘pub­lic as­sis­tance, and many more’ and al­so gives con­tact in­for­ma­tion.

“The coun­cil in­ves­ti­gat­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of this fly­er was ad­vised to vis­it the cam­paign of­fice of the can­di­date to fol­low up, there­by fur­ther giv­ing the im­pres­sion that one can ap­ply and be af­ford­ed grants from a PNM cam­paign of­fice.”

With the PNM hold­ing the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, the coun­cil stat­ed, these ad­ver­tise­ments give the im­pres­sion that state re­sources are be­ing chan­nelled through the cam­paign of­fices of PNM can­di­dates.

Based on the com­plaints, the coun­cil called once again on Dr Row­ley to be mind­ful of the use of lan­guage in the cam­paign and to “en­sure that its can­di­dates de­sist from giv­ing the im­pres­sion that grants can be on of­fer as in­duce­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly so when such will utilise state re­sources”.