Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves says he is await­ing ad­vice from his at­tor­neys on whether le­gal ac­tion can be tak­en against Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Anil Roberts.

Gon­salves al­so said that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar knows what the “right thing to do” is in this cir­cum­stance.

And for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell claimed that Roberts could have breached the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act.

This fol­lows Roberts’ pub­lic claim that Gon­salves ben­e­fit­ed from po­lit­i­cal favours un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion in re­la­tion to the Gon­salves fam­i­ly’s pur­chase or rental of three Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) units at Vic­to­ria Keyes.

Speak­ing on his Dou­bles and Cof­fee so­cial me­dia pro­gramme, Roberts al­so ques­tioned whether Gon­salves de­clared his fam­i­ly’s as­sets as re­quired by law, cit­ing doc­u­ments link­ing them to the prop­er­ties.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves has dis­missed Anil Roberts’ al­le­ga­tions as po­lit­i­cal mis­chief, say­ing “dirty wa­ter can’t tar­nish gold.”

He ex­plained that his wife and two chil­dren are cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which makes them el­i­gi­ble to buy units at Vic­to­ria Keyes, an open-mar­ket hous­ing project rather than a low-in­come one.

Gon­salves, who is cam­paign­ing for re-elec­tion, in­sist­ed his fam­i­ly did noth­ing wrong and ac­cused Roberts of try­ing to aid the op­po­si­tion.

And now the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter is con­tem­plat­ing le­gal ac­tion.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last evening, Gon­salves said, “Well, I’ve re­ferred cer­tain mat­ters to my lawyers who are in Trinidad, the se­nior coun­sel. I wouldn’t name the se­nior coun­sel yet. There’s a bun­dle of is­sues, le­gal is­sues, which arise. And I re­al­ly wouldn’t want to speak in de­tail. Those which touch up­on the ques­tion of defama­tion and those which touch up­on breach of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, in­clud­ing the right to pri­va­cy.”

Gon­salves con­tend­ed there is no rea­son­able jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for di­vulging his fam­i­ly’s in­for­ma­tion.

And while he has not reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue, he said, “My dear sis­ter, Kam­la, is an ex­pe­ri­enced politi­cian and I am sure that she knows what is the right thing to do.”

Pressed on what he be­lieves the right thing is, Gon­salves said it would not be right to ad­vise her.

Mean­while, for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ran­dall Mitchell, be­lieves Roberts may have breached the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act.

“In blus­ter­ing through his fab­ri­cat­ed ex­pose and re­leas­ing the con­fi­den­tial and sen­si­tive fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion of the Gon­za­les fam­i­ly, Min­is­ter Anil Roberts may have run afoul of the law by breach­ing sec­tion 28 of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, which pro­vides for con­fi­den­tial­i­ty by per­sons in pub­lic life, and min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment are per­sons in pub­lic life,” Mitchell said.

He said Roberts may al­so have vi­o­lat­ed a com­mon law du­ty of con­fi­dence by dis­clos­ing the Gon­salves fam­i­ly’s sen­si­tive bank­ing in­for­ma­tion, breach­ing pri­va­cy prin­ci­ples un­der the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act.

He added that the leak goes be­yond free­dom of in­for­ma­tion or pub­lic in­ter­est ar­gu­ments, as the de­tails were per­son­al, con­fi­den­tial, and fi­nan­cial­ly sen­si­tive.

Mitchell is now ques­tion­ing whether cit­i­zens have to be con­cerned that the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion will al­so leak their in­for­ma­tion in the fu­ture.

At­tempts to get a com­ment from Roberts were un­suc­cess­ful, but in a video re­leased yes­ter­day, Roberts made fur­ther al­le­ga­tions against the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter.

“You don’t find it was greedy, im­moral, or un­eth­i­cal. How­ev­er, you found out about HDC, sub­sidised, low-cost val­ue pur­chas­ing of a house. When Trinidad and To­ba­go has a hous­ing cri­sis, you don’t care about the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go? Two hun­dred and four­teen thou­sand peo­ple and ap­pli­ca­tions every day, sin­gle moth­ers, fam­i­lies, cry­ing, mes­sag­ing, beg­ging.”

Roberts ques­tioned if the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter is a “land­lord” to Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro.

Gon­salves lat­er dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions as “fool­ish­ness” and “rub­bish.”

Mean­while, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley urged Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Roberts’ ac­tions.