DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Cab­i­net mem­bers are seek­ing to dis­pel ru­mours sug­gest­ing they are dis­grun­tled over En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s ap­point­ment as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter in Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s ab­sence.

Young be­gan serv­ing as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter on Sep­tem­ber 1, fol­low­ing Row­ley’s de­par­ture for the Unit­ed States for rou­tine med­ical tests, ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM).

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress min­is­ter Jack Warn­er claimed last Wednes­day that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and oth­er se­nior PNM mem­bers were up­set by the ap­point­ment.

Im­bert had tra­di­tion­al­ly served as the act­ing Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing Row­ley’s ab­sences over the past nine years of his tenure as PM. Young’s pre­vi­ous act­ing role was on Ju­ly 28, when Row­ley at­tend­ed the 47th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Grena­da, while Im­bert was re­port­ed­ly on va­ca­tion.

Nei­ther Young nor Im­bert has pub­licly ad­dressed these ru­mours. Young avoid­ed re­porters af­ter the fu­ner­al ser­vice of vet­er­an mu­si­cian Roy “Pap­py” Cape yes­ter­day, leav­ing quick­ly with his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.

How­ev­er, his cab­i­net col­leagues voiced strong sup­port for Row­ley’s de­ci­sion.

Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell, a PNM mem­ber since 2008, em­pha­sised the par­ty’s or­gan­i­sa­tion and lack of in­ter­nal con­flict. He af­firmed that Row­ley, as Prime Min­is­ter, has the au­thor­i­ty to ap­point an act­ing Prime Min­is­ter and praised Young for his per­for­mance.

“We have a prime min­is­ter and his name is Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley. The prime min­is­ter in his pre­rog­a­tive iden­ti­fied min­is­ter Young to act in his stead dur­ing his ab­sence and that is the prime min­is­ter’s pre­rog­a­tive.

“I think Stu­art Young has done a good job, a great job ac­tu­al­ly. He is in­spi­ra­tional and his pre­de­ces­sor in act­ing, min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has done the same. This is who we are as the PNM. There is no bac­cha­nal. We are a very struc­tured par­ty, a very dis­ci­plined par­ty,” Mitchell said.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox avoid­ed com­ment­ing on whether Row­ley would run in up­com­ing elec­tions or step down af­ter his sec­ond term, as he pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed. She sim­i­lar­ly dis­missed claims of dis­con­tent with­in the par­ty.

“The point about it is that the choice of any­body act­ing as a prime min­is­ter is up to the present prime min­is­ter and as far as I’m con­cerned, I didn’t know that there was a va­can­cy so there’s no rea­son to be up­set about any­thing. I don’t re­al­ly an­swer to ru­mours. He (Dr Row­ley) did men­tion at some point that he will be step­ping down. He did not say when. So as far as I’m con­cerned, I don’t know of any va­can­cy,” Cox stat­ed.

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, a PNM mem­ber for 34 years, dis­missed Warn­er’s com­ments as “mis­chief” and as­sured the pub­lic of the par­ty’s uni­ty.

“You ought not to be sur­prised if Mr Warn­er says that. And I am cer­tain­ly not go­ing to get in­to that mis­chief. The point about it is we are all aware that the ho­n­ourable prime min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, it is to­tal­ly with­in his dis­cre­tion to se­lect some­one to act as prime min­is­ter and when he does that, we as mem­bers of the cab­i­net sup­port it,” Beck­les-Robin­son said.

The OPM an­nounced yes­ter­day that Dr Row­ley had re­turned to the coun­try, but did not pro­vide ad­di­tion­al de­tails about his health.