Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has bro­ken his si­lence on the tur­moil with­in the par­ty’s San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, call­ing for “com­mon sense” and a speedy res­o­lu­tion to the dis­pute.

Row­ley, who has large­ly stayed out of the in­creas­ing­ly pub­lic con­fronta­tion in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, for­mer con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is and the PNM lead­er­ship, was cau­tious when Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day sought his views on the con­tro­ver­sy.

Asked specif­i­cal­ly about the way the mat­ter has been han­dled by Man­ning and the par­ty’s lead­er­ship, Row­ley said he pre­ferred not to be­come di­rect­ly in­volved.

“I pre­fer to stand clear and hope that the res­o­lu­tions come quick­ly through com­mon sense de­ci­sions and ac­tions,” Row­ley said.

His com­ments come as the PNM con­tin­ues ef­forts to re­solve a bit­ter in­ter­nal dis­pute in San Fer­nan­do East, where Man­ning has pub­licly lev­elled al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and wrong­do­ing against mem­bers of his own par­ty and for­mer con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.

The con­tro­ver­sy has trig­gered an in­ter­nal PNM in­quiry, calls from par­ty of­fi­cials for an end to the pub­lic ex­changes and, more re­cent­ly, a meet­ing be­tween Man­ning, the con­stituen­cy and the par­ty lead­er­ship.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­scribed that meet­ing as “very pro­duc­tive and pos­i­tive,” while Man­ning of­fered a more guard­ed as­sess­ment, de­scrib­ing it as “cor­dial” and say­ing he was adopt­ing a “wait and see” ap­proach.

Among Man­ning’s al­le­ga­tions are claims that Alex­is un­fair­ly ben­e­fit­ed from Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­tracts.

Guardian Me­dia al­so ques­tioned Row­ley on those al­le­ga­tions and whether they raised ques­tions about his for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Row­ley served as prime min­is­ter and head of Cab­i­net dur­ing the PNM’s ten years in of­fice be­tween 2015 and 2025. With the cur­rent UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion hav­ing shut down the CEPEP pro­gramme short­ly af­ter tak­ing of­fice, Guardian Me­dia asked Row­ley whether he could re­spond to what could amount to an in­dict­ment of his for­mer gov­ern­ment if con­tracts were im­prop­er­ly award­ed dur­ing its tenure.

Row­ley, how­ev­er, said he did not have enough in­for­ma­tion at this stage to make a use­ful as­sess­ment and want­ed to see fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I don’t know enough about it at this time and there­fore pre­fer to watch from the side­lines un­til there is a bit more in­ves­tiga­tive ac­tiv­i­ty both from in­side and out­side the var­i­ous agen­cies,” Row­ley said.

He al­so pushed back against any sug­ges­tion, at this stage, that the al­le­ga­tions im­pli­cat­ed the for­mer Cab­i­net.

“I have not seen any­thing said about the Cab­i­net. There is al­ways mil­lions of things hap­pen­ing out­side of any Cab­i­net on any giv­en day,” he said.

“Un­til there are fac­tu­al clar­i­fi­ca­tions, I am not in a po­si­tion to make any help­ful com­ment at this time.”

The con­tro­ver­sy has in­creas­ing­ly moved be­yond an in­ter­nal PNM dis­pute, with Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters call­ing for Man­ning’s cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by law en­force­ment.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der this week al­so re­vealed that he had seen doc­u­ments con­nect­ed to the al­le­ga­tions, de­scrib­ing what he saw as “shock­ing.”

How­ev­er, Man­ning sub­se­quent­ly told Guardian Me­dia that he had not pro­vid­ed any doc­u­ments to Alexan­der or the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Asked whether he in­tend­ed to pro­vide ev­i­dence to the po­lice, Man­ning said there was al­ready enough in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main for law en­force­ment to act.