Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings has cho­sen not to com­ment on re­ports that a let­ter is be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed ques­tion­ing Dr Amery Browne and Roger Munroe’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in last month’s Spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing.

Browne and Munroe were elect­ed as chair­man and vice chair­man re­spec­tive­ly dur­ing the meet­ing on May 6.

When he was con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Cum­mings, the for­mer La Hor­quette/Tal­paro MP and Min­is­ter of Youth and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, said he had not re­ceived the doc­u­ment.

“I can­not com­ment on some­thing I have not re­ceived. If I re­ceive some­thing, I will take it from there,” he said.

The un­signed let­ter calls for a spe­cial meet­ing of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil to be held on Mon­day at Bal­isi­er House “to dis­cuss ur­gent mat­ters re­lat­ing to par­ty ac­tiv­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing the re­cent Spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil Meet­ing on May 6, 2025, to elect a chair­man and vice chair­man.”

It ref­er­enced Ar­ti­cle 14, which out­lines that the Leg­isla­tive Group shall be rep­re­sent­ed on the Gen­er­al Coun­cil by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from each House of Par­lia­ment, City or Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

In Browne’s case, it ar­gued that fol­low­ing the dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment and sub­se­quent gen­er­al elec­tion, the par­ty no longer had any sworn-in sen­a­tors at that time. There­fore, Browne’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the meet­ing was high­ly ques­tion­able.

Re­gard­ing Munroe, the let­ter point­ed to Ar­ti­cle 14 2 (b) of the PNM Con­sti­tu­tion, which states that all per­sons ap­proved by the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive as PNM can­di­dates for elec­tions to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, or lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies shall au­to­mat­i­cal­ly cease to be mem­bers if de­feat­ed in the elec­tion. As such, Munroe’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the meet­ing was de­scribed as “di­a­met­ri­cal­ly op­posed to Ar­ti­cle 14 2 (b).”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, records showed that at the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing of the Leg­isla­tive Group held on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2024, the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was for­mer D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, who passed away on De­cem­ber 16, 2024. No sub­se­quent meet­ing was held to elect a re­place­ment.

“The Gen­er­al Coun­cil is seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on these mat­ters, as the par­tic­i­pa­tion of both Mr Munroe and Dr Browne has in­tro­duced am­bi­gu­i­ty and has, in ef­fect, tar­nished the par­ty’s gov­er­nance process. In light of this, we sub­mit that the meet­ing and its de­ci­sions should be set aside,” the let­ter stat­ed

It al­so called on the Gen­er­al Coun­cil to set an ap­pro­pri­ate date for com­plet­ing mat­ters void­ed by their par­tic­i­pa­tion. It stressed the need to en­sure com­pli­ance with the par­ty’s Con­sti­tu­tion and to up­hold pro­ce­dur­al in­tegri­ty.

Fi­nal­ly, it drew at­ten­tion to Ar­ti­cle 23—Re­serve Pow­ers and In­ter­pre­ta­tion—which states that the Gen­er­al Coun­cil has the au­thor­i­ty to de­ter­mine all mat­ters not ad­dressed or clear­ly de­fined by the Con­sti­tu­tion, stand­ing or­ders, or reg­u­la­tions. The Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion on any such mat­ter is fi­nal.