Derek Achong

The Op­po­si­tion is call­ing on the Po­lice Ser­vice to in­ves­ti­gate Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for his self-con­fessed breach of on­go­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions pro­hibit­ing the pub­lic con­sump­tion of al­co­hol.

Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles and San Juan/Barataria MP Sad­dam Ho­sein made the call as they ad­dressed its week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain, on Sun­day.

“We are chal­leng­ing the TTPS. You have an oblig­a­tion un­der the law to treat all of us equal­ly,” Charles said.

Row­ley re­vealed the al­leged breach as he was speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s on Sat­ur­day.

“I was in Cas­tara last week, in a ve­hi­cle and I went in­to a place that sold beers and I had a beer and on my way to the ve­hi­cle I had this beer in a con­tain­er, the plas­tic bag which it was in, and it was such a hot and beau­ti­ful day that I sipped my beer and then some­body came up to me and said ‘you, con­sump­tion of al­co­hol in a pub­lic place is against the law’,” Row­ley said.

“So you missed the op­por­tu­ni­ty of see­ing me be­hind bars for breach­ing,” he said. 

Row­ley was us­ing the sto­ry to re­mind those ac­cess­ing the rivers and beach­es that al­co­hol con­sump­tion was off-lim­its.

“It hap­pened so eas­i­ly but it was a breach of the reg­u­la­tions, it hap­pened so eas­i­ly that I un­der­stand, but we re­al­ly have to say hold on for the time be­ing, do not go to the rivers for riv­er limes and cook duck by the thou­sands,” he added.

Charles and Ho­sein sug­gest­ed that it would be un­fair for Row­ley not to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed based on his ad­mis­sion.

“The PM has an oblig­a­tion to set the tone where he is not above the law and is equal to all of us. There can not be one law for him and an­oth­er for the rest of us,” Charles said. 

“I am ask­ing the po­lice to do their work. If the PM could be charged for breach­ing the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions he must be charged,” Ho­sein said, as he ref­er­enced a case in which a home­less man was slapped with a $1,000 tick­et for fail­ing to wear a mask in pub­lic.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said he was not aware of the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Row­ley be­ing re­port­ed to po­lice.

“With any re­port which is made to the po­lice, the po­lice will analyse the re­port to see if there is any mer­it to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” Ja­cob said.

He said in the ab­sence of a re­port from a mem­ber of the pub­lic, po­lice of­fi­cers can launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion if they wit­ness wrong­do­ing them­selves.