SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says in the com­ing days, he will meet with this coun­try’s Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials to dis­cuss the full re­open­ing of T&T’s op­er­a­tions, as there has been no-post Car­ni­val spike in COVID-19 cas­es.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) vir­tu­al pub­lic meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do Tues­day night, the Prime Min­is­ter said he has kept a close eye on the num­ber of COVID cas­es re­port­ed since the Taste of Car­ni­val events.

“And I will be mind­ed to tell the coun­try that I see no rea­son now not to open the coun­try com­plete­ly,” Row­ley said.

“So with­in the next few days, I will meet with our health team and we will take de­ci­sions com­mis­er­ate with the cir­cum­stances in Trinidad and To­ba­go and com­pare it to what is hap­pen­ing else­where,” he added.

How­ev­er, Row­ley said T&T must be cau­tious, as he said a num­ber of coun­tries have re­port­ed mas­sive out­breaks of the virus in the re­cent weeks.

“We have to be mind­ful but we can be a whole lot more op­er­a­tional, our econ­o­my has come through a very dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od but we ex­pect there will be some growth in our econ­o­my, those who are re­quir­ing Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance will get that as­sis­tance, those who can help them­selves will be en­cour­aged so to do, and we will strength­en our po­si­tion go­ing for­ward,” he said.

He urged cit­i­zens to ig­nore any de­trac­tors or those with “co­coa in the sun”, say­ing the coun­try must be grate­ful for the suc­cess that has been com­ing its way.

He al­so ex­pressed re­lief that stu­dents will be back in school in April.

The Prime Min­is­ter said dur­ing a re­cent vis­it to Qatar, he was told schools were nev­er ful­ly closed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

He said in that coun­try, how­ev­er, its cit­i­zens fol­lowed in­struc­tions and did as they were told dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“We are at the stage now where our chil­dren will be com­ing out to school in April and we trust that when that hap­pens, I will be the first per­son to ex­hale when we get back to that sit­u­a­tion where our chil­dren can go back to school. I find that so painful that they had not been able to go back to school for two years.”

The PM al­so ad­dressed the March 16 Cab­i­net reshuf­fle, where Faris Al-Rawi was re­moved from his po­si­tion as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and ap­point­ed as the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

For­mer agri­cul­ture min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat re­signed ear­li­er that day, prompt­ing the reshuf­fle and bring­ing ques­tions from the Op­po­si­tion and cit­i­zens.

But the Prime Min­is­ter said Ramb­harat’s res­ig­na­tion was pure­ly per­son­al.

“The on­ly rea­son why Sen­a­tor Ramb­harat is not with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day is be­cause I stand with him and he stands with his fam­i­ly, that is the on­ly rea­son and I tell them all, he hasn’t gone very far, be­cause he still has time for Trinidad and To­ba­go and he still has time for the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

“When I re­alised, hav­ing been told what he was deal­ing with, that he was leav­ing the Cab­i­net, I re­alised that was a blow to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but fam­i­ly called and fam­i­ly comes first, as mine does,” he added.

He thanked Ramb­harat for his ser­vice to the coun­try.

Row­ley said he looked on over the week­end as com­ments on the reshuf­fle poured in from all quar­ters.

“I was wait­ing for a sen­si­ble com­ment about how long this coun­try has been wait­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form for the last decade and we have fi­nal­ly come to the po­si­tion where that is now the lever that the Gov­ern­ment is hold­ing to move the coun­try and the im­prove­ment in the qual­i­ty of life for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go through lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form which is in front of the Par­lia­ment,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said he saw spec­u­la­tion about trou­ble in the PNM camp.

“Is all about trou­ble in the PNM, which PNM, this PNM? And about the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion, which po­si­tion? My po­si­tion? This is not about me, this is not about the PNM,” he said.

He quot­ed from a PNM doc­u­ment that spoke about a prin­ci­ple de­vel­oped in the Eu­ro­pean Union that in­volves tak­ing de­ci­sion mak­ing to the “low­est lev­els where it is prac­ti­ca­ble and com­pe­tent for the de­ci­sions to be made.”

“It means de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion, de­vo­lu­tion and giv­ing re­al re­sources and greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to lo­cal gov­ern­ment, some­thing that we have talked about for 50 years in Trinidad and To­ba­go but which we have done lit­tle about. It means now, a greater role for mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and it means like in­sti­tu­tions like the Par­lia­ment must be made to pay a much greater role through re­formed ag­gres­sive over­sight in en­sur­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy and con­se­quences,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

‘Ex-com­mis­sion­er a de­ranged imp’

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith both got a tongue lash­ing from the PM last night.

“The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, who ap­par­ent­ly will join us very soon, open­ly, in the po­lit­i­cal are­na, made a state­ment that I as Prime Min­is­ter gave him $35 mil­lion to pur­sue Op­po­si­tion MPs. As soon as he made that state­ment, a for­mer prime min­is­ter is call­ing for me as Prime Min­is­ter to be charged for do­ing that,” he said.

La­belling the for­mer com­mis­sion­er as a “de­ranged imp”, the PM said the funds al­lo­cat­ed to the TTPS to fight white-col­lar crime was ac­tu­al­ly $100 mil­lion.

He al­so pre­sent­ed fig­ures from a re­port done on the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EM­BD). He said when the PNM took of­fice in 2015, five con­trac­tors were claim­ing the EM­BD owed them over $900mil­lion.

“We met con­trac­tors with cer­ti­fied claims, as good as cash ac­cord­ing to them, be­cause those cer­tifi­cates are nor­mal­ly as good as cash, $965 mil­lion of claims against this lit­tle com­pa­ny,” he said.

Row­ley said an ex­am­i­na­tion of the claims showed al­most $1 mil­lion owed to a se­nior ad­vi­sor to Per­sad-Bisses­sar while she was in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

“It’s the on­ly name I will call tonight, you all know Shem Baldeosingh, he was the ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice, soon af­ter he was brought here for favours done or not done, he be­came the se­nior ad­vi­sor in the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice, but he is here re­ceiv­ing from con­trac­tors in this bil­lion-dol­lar largess $904,000, in­side the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter,” Row­ley said.

He said the EM­BD has man­aged to set­tle 13 claims against it for $43 mil­lion– some $593 less than what was be­ing claimed.

“So had EM­BD not fought this mat­ter through strong le­gal fight, you, the tax­pay­ers, would have had to pay those claims, those fraud­u­lent­ly cer­ti­fied claims of $593 mil­lion more, sev­en oth­er lit­i­ga­tion mat­ters of a val­ue of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 mil­lion were set­tled for $670,000,” he said.

Row­ley said as of March 22, 2022, there were al­most 30 out­stand­ing claims against the com­pa­ny.

“The to­tal is amount­ing to $3.77 bil­lion ... So when they (Op­po­si­tion) come and tell you about $35 mil­lion, it’s not $35 mil­lion, it’s $100 mil­lion,” he said.

“They are very bold­faced and you would think if you were a Prime Min­is­ter who led a team like that where half of your Cab­i­net is in the cour­t­house, you will keep your­self qui­et but you out front call­ing for me to be charged be­cause some de­ranged imp telling you that he was giv­en mon­ey to pur­sue you, pur­su­ing white-col­lar crime is an ex­pen­sive process,” Row­ley added.

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