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Sunday, May 25, 2025

Rowley warns UNC against using Parliament to protect criminal conduct

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23 days ago
20250502
Former PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley speaks to Guardian Media after the General Council meeting at Balisier House on Wednesday. ↔

Former PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley speaks to Guardian Media after the General Council meeting at Balisier House on Wednesday. ↔

ABRAHAM DIAZ

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says T&T and the me­dia must en­sure that mem­bers of the new Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment do not un­der­mine, dis­miss or de­lay the re­cov­ery of the ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$100 mil­lion in the US courts in the Pi­ar­co Air­port mat­ter.

“Peo­ple in­volved in those mat­ters were up front in fund­ing this gov­ern­ment and ar­rang­ing elec­toral vic­to­ry for this gov­ern­ment with the ex­pec­ta­tion and the hope that the gov­ern­ment will act in their in­ter­est and not the pub­lic in­ter­est,” Row­ley al­leged at a me­dia brief­ing at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters on Wednes­day.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern that peo­ple with ques­tions to an­swer about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues are “cosy­ing” up to the new gov­ern­ment and may not be held ac­count­able.

On cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal­i­ty, Row­ley said cit­i­zens should be con­cerned “that peo­ple in the gov­ern­ment to­day, many of them have ques­tions to an­swer about white col­lar crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty of one kind or an­oth­er.”

He added: “It is my view they will use the gov­ern­ment to evade their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. This gov­ern­ment, in its pri­or in­car­na­tion, has shown a dis­po­si­tion to use the gov­ern­ment and the Par­lia­ment to pro­tect crim­i­nal con­duct on the part of its friends.

“That sit­u­a­tion has been recre­at­ed. There are a num­ber of is­sues in the court now where the gov­ern­ment is re­quired to dili­gent­ly per­se­cute peo­ple for wrong­do­ing. It is my view that this Gov­ern­ment has no com­mit­ment to that.

“One par­tic­u­lar one I want to raise is the mat­ter that the PNM gov­ern­ment pros­e­cut­ed in Flori­da, against peo­ple who were held ac­count­able for mat­ters con­cern­ing the Pi­ar­co Air­port.

“This gov­ern­ment, in its pri­or in­car­na­tion, re­fused to pros­e­cute the mat­ter. It lay dor­mant for the five years that the UNC was there un­der the cur­rent prime min­is­ter. We pros­e­cut­ed it to com­ple­tion and won the case.”

Row­ley al­so cit­ed the Cli­co bailout is­sue.

“You may re­call when this gov­ern­ment was in of­fice and went out of of­fice, they told this coun­try that they had set­tled the Cli­co mat­ter, that the Cli­co bailout was now his­to­ry, every­thing had been done and T&T had noth­ing to wor­ry about.

“When we came in­to gov­ern­ment, we dis­cov­ered it was not so at all. We faced three things. We dis­cov­ered for the first time how large the bailout was (up­wards of $29 bil­lion), dis­cov­ered that up­wards of $15 bil­lion was still out­stand­ing and worse, the prin­ci­pal orig­i­nal in­ter­est in the Cli­co mat­ter was re­fus­ing to sign the IOU stat­ing that they owed tax­pay­ers that mon­ey,” he said.

Not­ing that Point Fortin and oth­er ar­eas vot­ed UNC, Row­ley al­so re­count­ed is­sues with the Point Fortin High­way project and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment‘s work to re­turn mon­ey to T&T from that project.

“Peo­ple vot­ed against the gov­ern­ment that brought back the mon­ey that was stolen, by vot­ing for the peo­ple who had stolen,” he al­leged.

“Isn’t that a hel­lu­va thing? It tells me that the pop­u­la­tion it­self does not hold peo­ple ac­count­able for white-col­lar crim­i­nal con­duct and that’s why so many peo­ple with ques­tions to an­swer could be around this gov­ern­ment.

“Some of them aim­ing to get in­to the Cab­i­net while the ques­tions of mis­con­duct in the white-col­lar crime realm haven’t been dealt with to com­ple­tion,” Row­ley said.

“To me, that’s a red flag in T&T, where the gov­ern­ment has no com­mit­ment to treat­ing with white-col­lar crim­i­nal con­duct and en­cour­age peo­ple, but this isn’t on­ly to do with mon­ey. This cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal­i­ty, it al­so has to do with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.”

Row­ley said he hoped the San­dals in­vestors won’t be chased away again.

Not­ing that the new gov­ern­ment has a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty, Row­ley said he ex­pect­ed that since they had “vot­ed down” the PNM gov­ern­ment’s au­ton­o­my pro­pos­als, they would “vote up bet­ter terms and con­di­tions for To­ba­go.”

He added: “The PNM would stand by to sup­port that notwith­stand­ing what is said in To­ba­go.”


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