Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night an­swered the nine ques­tions which Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised on mat­ters con­cern­ing the Pres­i­dent and Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion - and he’s called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to with­draw to­mor­row’s mo­tion to try to re­move the Pres­i­dent.

He did so at the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment’s San Fer­nan­do meet­ing last night, urg­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar not to stain T&T’s rep­u­ta­tion and record with the mo­tion against the Pres­i­dent. The mo­tion will be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row (Thurs).

Re­ply­ing to the nine ques­tions which Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised on the PSC mat­ter af­ter he spoke on the is­sue last Sat­ur­day and the Pres­i­dent spoke on Sun­day, Row­ley stat­ed, “Tonight, I an­swer all nine and then say if we should re­move the Pres­i­dent.”

He list­ed the queries and replies:

1. When specif­i­cal­ly did he in­form the PSC he’d lost faith in the Po­lice com­mis­sion­er?

Some­time in the last year.

2. What caused his loss of faith in then Cop Gary Grif­fith?

His good judg­ment and un­der­stand­ing.

3. Did he on­ly write the PSC chair­man or all mem­bers?

He wrote the chair­man and in ef­fect felt the en­tire com­mis­sion would be made aware of his po­si­tion by the chair.

4. Did the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al know of the let­ter or was he kept in the dark?

No min­is­ter in his Cab­i­net is ever in the dark.

5. Did the Cab­i­net try to un­der­mine the process?

No ac­tion in­volved any un­der­min­ing of any­thing. The on­ly time the Cab­i­net got near this was when mem­bers got le­gal opin­ion by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil sub­mit­ted to Cab­i­net, tak­en to Cab­i­net and ad­vised the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to ad­vise the PSC of such coun­sel.

6. What oth­er ac­tion against the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er was tak­en?

Ask the PSC.

7. How many oth­er in­ter­fer­ences has the PM made in the last year since his let­ter to the PSC?

The in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the PM’s of­fice, Pres­i­dent and PSC is nev­er in­ter­fer­ence when it is in­ter­fac­ing in the high­est tra­di­tions.

8. Was con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion about the PSC be­ing shared be­tween the PM and Pres­i­dent?

He pre­sumed con­ver­sa­tions be­tween the PM and Pres­i­dent on any mat­ter is con­fi­den­tial un­til any of­fi­cer de­cides to make it oth­er­wise. He not­ed a PSC mem­ber writ­ing to the chair­man and send­ing it al­so to a per­son who had sued the PSC.

On that point, Row­ley added, “But you want to know what the Pres­i­dent and I talk about – I not telling you.”

9. On pos­si­ble de­rail­ing of the mer­it list from be­ing sent to Par­lia­ment?

The Pres­i­dent's state­ment in­di­cat­ed the list was brought to Pres­i­dent’s House and im­me­di­ate­ly with­drawn.

Af­ter re­ply­ing, Row­ley said he want­ed to tell Per­sad-Bisses­sar that she was a col­league of his and even if she thought some­thing had gone wrong, enough had been made avail­able to her now and there was pro­vi­sion that if the mover of such a mo­tion like hers was of a changed view, they could with­draw the mo­tion.

“I’d like to ask the Op­po­si­tion leader, based on what she knows now, notwith­stand­ing your con­cern or mal­ice be­fore, don't put our coun­try through that (mo­tion) - don’t put that on our coun­try’s record, don’t stain our coun­try - with­draw this mo­tion,” the PM said

How­ev­er, he al­so said the queries had been an­swered but “You think it will end there? We still have to go to the Par­lia­ment and hear the Op­po­si­tion try to den­i­grate the Pres­i­dent shame­less­ly.”

He said she couldn’t bring a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against him or the Gov­ern­ment but in her mis­un­der­stand­ing and mis­chief, had brought one against the Pres­i­dent. He said she didn’t re­sign in the Sec­tion 34 is­sue in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship’s tenure but was now the “stan­dard-bear­er of high val­ue and want to re­move the Pres­i­dent?”

Row­ley al­so said he was tak­ing no ad­vice from the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, which yes­ter­day is­sued a re­lease over a news­pa­per re­port on re­marks Row­ley had made on a case. He said LATT’s voice was heard pro­mot­ing “UNC fool­ish­ness” and ques­tioned where their voice was on oth­er mat­ters.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris-Al Rawi al­so said the LATT’s re­lease lacked bal­ance. He asked where LATT’s voice was when Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er UNC mem­bers had spo­ken on the Vin­cent Nel­son court mat­ter.