Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les dra­mat­i­cal­ly set fire to a court or­der served on the par­ty over the fi­nanc­ing of its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters on Thurs­day night, de­clar­ing that the Op­po­si­tion would not be in­tim­i­dat­ed by the le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

Hold­ing up the doc­u­ment be­fore sup­port­ers at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House, Gon­za­les said the PNM would not be cowed by the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“There­fore, this or­der that was served on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to ask what we are do­ing and how we came about with funds to con­struct our Bal­isi­er House, we will not be afraid of this or­der be­cause the PNM is not on­ly in brick and con­crete and mor­tar.

“The PNM lives in the heart and the dreams of every sin­gle cit­i­zen of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mo­ments lat­er, Gon­za­les ig­nit­ed the doc­u­ment be­fore par­ty sup­port­ers.

“We will burn this court or­der be­cause it will not des­e­crate the grounds up­on which the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was built... Great is the PNM,” he de­clared.

The dra­mat­ic act came as PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les told sup­port­ers that the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fi­nanc­ing of the par­ty’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters was an­oth­er at­tempt to in­tim­i­date the Op­po­si­tion.

“When they see this sea of red here, it’s pan­ic,” she said.

Hold­ing up what she said was a 1958 PNM doc­u­ment, Beck­les ar­gued that the par­ty head­quar­ters was the ful­fil­ment of a long-held vi­sion dat­ing back to the par­ty’s founder Dr Er­ic Williams.

“This is his­to­ry. This is lega­cy. This is foun­da­tion,” she said, adding that a per­ma­nent head­quar­ters had been en­vi­sioned since 1958.

She not­ed that in 2018, then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the late en­er­gy min­is­ter Franklin Khan turned the sod for con­struc­tion of the cur­rent Bal­isi­er House, de­scrib­ing the project as “the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of a dream that start­ed many, many years ago.”

Beck­les al­so ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion of gov­ern­ing out of po­lit­i­cal re­venge.

“The biggest prob­lem with this Gov­ern­ment, they are run­ning a coun­try based on re­venge,” she al­leged, adding that gov­ern­ments should gov­ern in the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens rather than them­selves.

Her com­ments came just over a week af­ter PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings was served with a High Court or­der com­pelling the par­ty to pro­duce fi­nan­cial and oth­er records ex­plain­ing how the mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters was fi­nanced.

High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed grant­ed the or­der fol­low­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, which is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the fund­ing of the head­quar­ters. Po­lice were giv­en sev­en days to serve the or­der.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­lows an ap­pli­ca­tion for a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der (PU­WO), au­tho­rised by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro on Ju­ly 10 un­der Sec­tion 58(1) of the Civ­il As­set Re­cov­ery and Man­age­ment and Un­ex­plained Wealth Act, 2019.

Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ram­dath Phillip is lead­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Gon­za­les al­so lev­elled se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions against el­e­ments with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, claim­ing there was wide­spread cor­rup­tion sur­round­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

Re­fer­ring to of­fi­cial fig­ures, Gon­za­les ques­tioned why not all PDOs is­sued had been ex­e­cut­ed.

“Are you aware that out of the 465 PDOs is­sued by the po­lice, on­ly 435 of those PDOs were ex­e­cut­ed on per­sons? Ask your­self, what is hap­pen­ing with the rest of the PDOs?” he asked sup­port­ers.

With­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence, Gon­za­les al­leged that some in­di­vid­u­als were be­ing ex­tort­ed by cor­rupt of­fi­cers.

“I am told that there is a mas­sive cor­rup­tion tak­ing place in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice where busi­ness­men and cit­i­zens of means are told that there’s a PDO out for their ar­rest. And if they do not pay thou­sands of dol­lars to cor­rupt po­lice of­fi­cers, then the PDO will be ex­e­cut­ed on them.”

He called on Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to ad­dress the al­le­ga­tions.

“I want to ask the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, what does he know about that?” Gon­za­les said.

He fur­ther al­leged that some de­ten­tion or­ders were de­lib­er­ate­ly with­held and re­newed the Op­po­si­tion’s call for what he de­scribed as a “full and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion” in­to the man­age­ment of the de­ten­tion or­ders.

The al­le­ga­tions came on the same day the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty re­voked the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders is­sued against busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve Hadeed, bring­ing an end to the emer­gency de­ten­tion mea­sures im­posed on the cou­ple.

The min­istry said the de­ci­sion fol­lowed a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the le­gal, med­ical and pub­lic in­ter­est is­sues sur­round­ing the case, in­clud­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from the Con­sti­tu­tion Re­view Tri­bunal and on­go­ing as­sess­ments un­der the 2026 Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions.

How­ev­er, it stressed that the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials re­mains ac­tive, with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions along­side lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies.