An­tho­ny Wil­son

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said yes­ter­day that when he dis­closed that the Gov­ern­ment had spent $45 mil­lion ren­o­vat­ing, out­fit­ting and leas­ing an ex­ec­u­tive build­ing in Port-of-Spain to house the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, he was not at­tack­ing of­fice hold­er Roger Gas­pard.

More im­por­tant­ly, he says the Gov­ern­ment re­spects the in­de­pen­dence of the of­fice and will work hand in hand with the DPP to sort out the is­sues with his of­fice.

“To say what the Cab­i­net had done and what the out­come had been is not an at­tack on the DPP. It is a state­ment of fact. It is not an al­le­ga­tion,” Row­ley said dur­ing me­dia con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, adding, “Show me one in­stance where I did, or any­body in my Gov­ern­ment, take is­sue with a de­ci­sion of the DPP in any case.”

At a pub­lic meet­ing of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment(PNM) in Barataria on March 8, the Prime Min­is­ter gave de­tails on the build­ing, which once housed RBTT Fi­nan­cial’s head of­fice, as he not­ed it re­mained un­oc­cu­pied by the Of­fice of the DPP af­ter three years.

Row­ley’s com­ments came a day af­ter Gas­pard dis­closed in a ra­dio in­ter­view that his Of­fice suf­fered from “an acute and chron­ic” staff short­age, with 58 ac­tu­al em­ploy­ees and a pro­posed com­ple­ment of 137.

Yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said be­cause there is no ev­i­dence of any ac­tion or com­ment by any Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials about the de­ci­sions of the DPP, “then you can un­der­stand why I can say here to­day with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, there is no at­tack on the DPP in Trinidad and To­ba­go by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He said, “This week of talk­ing about at­tacks on the DPP and want­i­ng to in­ter­fere in the DPP’s Of­fice, the op­po­site is the truth.”

Row­ley added, “To­day, I want to tell the pop­u­la­tion that noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth. There is no ac­tion of the Gov­ern­ment, no in­ten­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­fere with the DPP’s work in his of­fice.

“So, all those who are spec­u­lat­ing that what you have seen is some­thing to do with the Gov­ern­ment, and who­ev­er else, want­i­ng to get rid of the DPP, we have no in­ter­est in that. Ex­cept, we want to know that the job of the Of­fice of the DPP is go­ing on as it is sup­posed to go on.

“Who­ev­er is in that of­fice can re­ly on 110 per cent sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, where the Cab­i­net is in­volved, to con­tribute to that work.”

He al­so re­fut­ed com­ments from the Op­po­si­tion that he is afraid of the DPP.

“As Prime Min­is­ter, as leader of the PNM, I have no­body whose in­ter­est I am to pro­tect that will cause me to be afraid of the DPP.”

The PM, how­ev­er, re­fused jour­nal­ists’ re­quests to have AG Regi­nald Ar­mour, who was in the au­di­ence, an­swer ques­tions on his meet­ing with the DPP last week. He said Ar­mour would ad­dress this on his time.

Row­ley al­so dis­missed com­ments by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day this week that the Gov­ern­ment wants to crush the DPP as “ab­solute hog­wash, non­sense.”

“I will not stand here qui­et­ly and al­low for­mer prime min­is­ters of the UNC, who are re­spon­si­ble for this Pi­ar­co scan­dal, to come and talk that non­sense in the pub­lic do­main and have it go un­chal­lenged. I will chal­lenge it every time,” he said.

Based on the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments on the Of­fice of the DPP at the po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Barataria, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion UNC have al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to hound Gas­pard out of of­fice be­cause of his de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the pros­e­cu­tion on cor­rup­tion charges of for­mer PM Bas­deo Pan­day, his wife Oma Pan­day, for­mer Cab­i­net min­is­ter Car­los John and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh.

The Op­po­si­tion has al­so linked the Gov­ern­ment’s com­ments on the DPP to his de­ci­sion last Oc­to­ber to dis­con­tin­ue the cor­rup­tion case against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and for­mer Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen.

But Row­ley chal­lenged this.

“As a mat­ter of fact, con­trary to what you hear the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar say­ing about the DPP, I have kept my dis­tance very far from of­fices that are deemed to be in­de­pen­dent. That’s be­cause I know if you hear me talk­ing to the DPP in a restau­rant, or if you see me go­ing to his of­fice, that will make news for a month,” said Row­ley.

He said he re­lies on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, both the cur­rent of­fi­cer hold­er, Regi­nald Ar­mour, and the pre­vi­ous AG, Faris Al-Rawi, to be the li­aisons be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the DPP.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so said he hopes the DPP ig­nores much of the “rub­bish” the Op­po­si­tion has been prop­a­gat­ing on this is­sue.

“My friends on the oth­er side of the Par­lia­ment saw the op­por­tu­ni­ty, once again, to try and get their friends not to go to court and an­swer the charges, rais­ing all kinds of red her­rings and talk­ing all kinds of rub­bish.

“I hope the DPP is suf­fi­cient­ly in­tel­li­gent to let all of that non­sense bounce off his ears and ig­nore the sup­port­ers of crim­i­nal con­duct in this coun­try,” Row­ley said.