Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is di­rect­ing all ques­tions to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, on whether or not a re­cent se­nior State board ap­pointee is the at­tor­ney with close ties to the Gov­ern­ment who is al­leged­ly among those mak­ing death threats to him.

The Prime Min­is­ter gave this re­sponse yes­ter­day when asked by Guardian Me­dia to com­ment on the claim, af­ter Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les called on her to name the at­tor­ney be­hind the al­leged death threats.

The at­tor­ney with close ties to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment, as well as two il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tors and a mil­i­tary per­son, were cit­ed in a re­port on the al­leged threat to Sturge.

This cen­tred on Sturge’s pur­port­ed re­sis­tance to com­ply with de­mands for jobs at the con­stituen­cy and State lev­el.
Af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, it’s un­der­stood Sturge has vis­it­ed his To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy of­fice on­ly twice on of­fi­cial con­stituen­cy days due to threats of protests out­side the of­fice and cer­tain con­fronta­tions that oc­curred where his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail had to act. He has, how­ev­er, been at the of­fice at vary­ing times, and his sup­port staff has con­tin­ued work­ing at the of­fice.

On Mon­day, Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the threat to Sturge was “very re­al.”

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly said “mi­nor se­cu­ri­ty ad­just­ments” were made on a tem­po­rary ba­sis to pro­tect some min­is­ters. This fol­lowed al­leged threats on the lives of the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, Bar­ry Padarath, as well as Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief pro­gramme man­ag­er Feeroze Khan, af­ter the Gov­ern­ment be­gan re­struc­tur­ing so­cial pro­grammes.

How­ev­er, on Wednes­day, Ma­haraj and Alexan­der urged re­porters to get an­swers from Sturge him­self on when and what threats had been made to him, to what se­cu­ri­ty agency he re­port­ed it, and oth­er de­tails.

Af­ter Gon­za­les on Tues­day called out Per­sad-Bisses­sar to speak on the iden­ti­ty of the UNC-con­nect­ed at­tor­ney, she replied to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, say­ing, “Please ask Min­is­ter Sturge.”

Yes­ter­day, an­oth­er top UNC Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter re­ferred Guardian Me­dia to Sturge for a re­sponse on whether all in­for­ma­tion and po­ten­tial risks were dis­closed to the par­ty hi­er­ar­chy and de­ci­sion-mak­ers be­fore Sturge’s ap­point­ment as min­is­ter, or when he said he didn’t want to be a min­is­ter. The lat­ter was stat­ed by Sturge on a UNC plat­form at a cam­paign meet­ing two weeks be­fore the elec­tion.

Sturge did not re­spond to ques­tions on the is­sues. All calls and mes­sages to his phone for an­swers and de­tails have gone unan­swered since word of the al­leged death threat broke.

On Mon­day, Ma­haraj said the Cab­i­net was set to meet soon on “the is­sue of the fears of min­is­ters over their safe­ty and that of their fam­i­lies.” It was ex­pect­ed that it would have been at yes­ter­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing. How­ev­er, a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing was not held yes­ter­day. No rea­son was giv­en but Gov­ern­ment sources de­nied it was not held be­cause of­fi­cials want­ed to “duck” an­swer­ing ques­tions on the Sturge is­sue. It was not­ed that no me­dia brief­ing was held the pre­vi­ous Thurs­day. Back then, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed a func­tion at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in­volv­ing TSTT’s Fu­ture Lead­ers in­tern­ship pro­gramme.