Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has claimed that Jack Warn­er is back with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress be­cause Warn­er wants to be with peo­ple who'd make a deal so he wouldn't be ex­tra­dit­ed from T&T - and Row­ley has warned San­gre Grande against the UNC af­ter cer­tain out­go­ing UNC coun­cil­lors there.

Row­ley in­di­cat­ed this dur­ing Tues­day night's "Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter" seg­ment in San­gre Grande.

He said it was a tra­di­tion that in elec­tion week, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment must be in San­gre Grande, adding the par­ty was proud to rep­re­sent San­gre Grande in the Par­lia­ment and would be even proud­er to have ma­jor­i­ty con­trol of its cor­po­ra­tion on Mon­day (for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion).

Isha Ali, of North West San­gre Grande, not­ing that NC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had brought back Warn­er, asked how some­one with ex­tra­di­tion is­sues could be in pol­i­tics.

Row­ley said, "Let's not be trou­bled by the res­ur­rec­tion of Jack Warn­er. All you're see­ing in the shock­ing re­ver­sal of po­si­tions be­tween Mr Warn­er, the UNC and its leader boils down to one sim­ple thing - Jack Warn­er has some se­ri­ous ex­tra­di­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, he wants to be with peo­ple who'd make a deal that he wouldn't be ex­tra­dit­ed.

"So, from the time he's able to make that deal - 'Sec­tion 35 ' you could call it - as you know what the (PP Gov­ern­ment's) Sec­tion 34 was: Mrs Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar us­ing the Par­lia­ment to amend a clause in a law so peo­ple with ex­tra­di­tion prob­lems would es­cape court in the US. So, Jack Warn­er has the same prob­lem. S,o who you'll ex­pect him to run to, who'll strike a deal with him...they've done it be­fore and what you see­ing there is them at­tempt­ing to do it again."

He added, "Ig­nore Jack Warn­er but keep your eye on the UNC that's pre­pared to make that kind of deal."

Row­ley al­leged that among out­go­ing San­gre Grande UNC coun­cil­lors, one had been ar­rest­ed and two oth­ers are of in­ter­est to po­lice for "skull­dug­gery with the lit­tle mon­ey you have in San­gre Grande ... what you want dem (back) for? To go back and hide their tracks to con­tin­ue their mis­con­duct and shame­less be­hav­iour?"

He claimed what was be­ing seen in the cor­po­ra­tion was what they saw at the Par­lia­men­tary lev­els and if "Ma­ma, pa­pa and un­cle" could do it, they could do it too.

"When you go to vote on Mon­day don't vote them back, let them spend their time with the po­lice! We've giv­en you the most ex­cel­lent can­di­dates - go out and vote PNM! This is trans­for­ma­tion time - San­gre Grande lead the way to­wards Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form!"

Row­ley was asked by Shel­ton Lewis how he was cop­ing with the slew of at­tacks and state­ments against him.

The PM said he's blessed with a sup­port­ive fam­i­ly he's proud of. He said he'd been in pub­lic life for many decades and it seems to be get­ting worse. He said he's worked with politi­cians like Ho­choy Charles, Bas­deo Pan­day, Sel­by Wil­son, Kelvin Ram­nath - peo­ple he was on the op­po­site side of, "But we'd at least have had a drink and talked to­geth­er."

"But what's hap­pen­ing to­day," he added, "is the poi­so­nous ha­tred that re­placed ca­ma­raderie in the Par­lia­ment. You see it in the nas­ti­est of per­son­al at­tacks as the cur­rent pop­u­la­tion of these peo­ple be­lieve this 'knock­out punch ', slan­der of peo­ple and mark bussing will de­stroy peo­ple.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I've been a tar­get - but on every oc­ca­sion they've missed the mark. While it's an­noy­ing...it is dan­ger­ous, if I'm not able to clear my name even­tu­al­ly I'll be slan­dered."

He felt the sit­u­a­tion was oc­cur­ring since some felt his Gov­ern­ment might be do­ing what they did. He said none of his min­is­ters were un­der po­lice probe for fraud and it's both­er­ing some peo­ple. But he said he didn't have enough fin­gers and toes to count "the amount of them who are of in­ter­est of the po­lice."

For­mer coun­cil­lor Paul Mon­go­las was con­cerned about so­cial me­dia videos show­ing Row­ley as a tar­get and pro­mot­ing vi­o­lence with state­ments.

Row­ley said some peo­ple saw po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fit to what they feel will work for them, but it was ir­re­spon­si­ble to give that kind of breadth to such things, as those are "tigers" which once mount­ed, can­not be dis­mount­ed from.

He said peo­ple are copy­ing mu­sic and cloth­ing from the US and are now copy­ing US pol­i­tics and a lot of that isn't good.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, some be­lieve it's good pol­i­tics and there's ben­e­fit to be had -for­tu­nate­ly the vast ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple will re­ject that kind of de­vel­op­ment," he said.

The PM urged the area to do in elec­tion what it did in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He an­swered ques­tions on op­por­tu­ni­ties for the area, for youths, roads and oth­er is­sues.

Grace Smith asked if the LG re­form would con­trol an al­leged "rack­et" in the cor­po­ra­tion with truck­ing and asked about a trans­fer for her di­a­bet­ic daugh­ter.

Row­ley said LG re­form should sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce or end rack­e­teer­ing with bet­ter man­age­ment. He said he'd talk to the MP on her daugh­ter's sit­u­a­tion.