Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is the on­ly known min­is­ter who was pho­tographed while pro­mot­ing gang busi­ness.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Row­ley fired back at Mooni­lal, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of award­ing lu­cra­tive con­tracts to gang lead­ers, not­ing this in turn was un­der­min­ing the po­lice’s war against crim­i­nal gangs.

On Sun­day, Mooni­lal, the MP for Oropouche East, called on Row­ley to ter­mi­nate con­tracts with the gang lead­ers and take ac­tion against any min­is­ter who gave such con­tracts. He said Row­ley con­tin­ued to har­bour se­nior Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters with known links to peo­ple be­fore the courts and oth­er al­leg­ed gang lead­ers.

Re­spond­ing to Mooni­lal, Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment has been and con­tin­ues to fight crim­i­nal con­duct at every lev­el and will con­tin­ue to sup­port law en­force­ment in all their law­ful ef­forts to rid the coun­try of this scourge in all its forms.

“In re­sponse to the scan­dalous be­hav­iour of the UNC, a par­ty that has yet again been caught re­cruit­ing and pro­mot­ing crim­i­nals in the po­lit­i­cal process, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ac­cus­es the Gov­ern­ment of award­ing lu­cra­tive con­tracts to un­savoury char­ac­ters.

“This com­ing from Dr Mooni­lal is laugh­ably hyp­o­crit­i­cal, since he is the on­ly known min­is­ter of any gov­ern­ment who used tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars to pay a pho­tog­ra­ph­er to fol­low him around to pho­to­graph and pro­mote him in these ac­tiv­i­ties and cur­rent­ly is the on­ly pho­to we have of any min­is­ter pro­mot­ing that for which he now says is an ac­tion which un­der­mines the ef­fort of the po­lice. What an epiphany!”

In 2013, Mooni­lal, then hous­ing and ur­ban de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter, was pho­tographed when shak­ing the hands of Ken­neth “Span­ish” Ro­driguez dur­ing a vis­it to the site of the Dun­can Street Po­lice Post, then still un­der con­struc­tion. On Mon­day, Ro­driguez, dubbed a com­mu­ni­ty leader, along with An­cel “Chemist” Vil­lafana, ap­peared be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Cher­ril-Anne An­toine in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court charged with mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion. They were picked up dur­ing the po­lice’s an­ti-gang op­er­a­tion last week.

In his re­sponse yes­ter­day, Row­ley said con­tracts are not award­ed by any min­is­ters in his Gov­ern­ment. He said that prac­tice was a fea­ture of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship and was a ma­jor stim­u­lus to the ram­pant cor­rup­tion that was the hall­mark of their 2010-2015 tenure. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, the PM said, min­is­ters even col­lect­ed the cheque pay­ments owed to con­trac­tors, who then had to bar­gain for the re­lease of such funds.

“Dr Mooni­lal more than any­one else knows that this Gov­ern­ment knows that. He al­so speaks self-right­eous­ly about the trou­ble­some is­sue of pet­ty crim­i­nals get­ting Gov­ern­ment con­tracts, but is ab­solute­ly silent on the pres­ence of crim­i­nals on the UNC po­lit­i­cal plat­form and in the Par­lia­ment.”

But in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Mooni­lal ac­cused Row­ley of de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­lead­ing the pub­lic and called on him to stop the “ole talk and rum talk.”

“I have not and nev­er em­ployed any pho­tog­ra­ph­er to un­der­take any per­son­al as­sign­ment for me since I got mar­ried 16 years ago,” Mooni­lal said.

“The pub­lic ser­vices has rules and reg­u­la­tions for procur­ing ser­vices and a min­is­ter can­not hire any­one for such ser­vices. These scan­dalous al­le­ga­tions come from a Gov­ern­ment that ad­mit­ted in Par­lia­ment in No­vem­ber 2017 that they spent thou­sands of dol­lars for a make-up artist to pow­der up min­is­ters pri­or to the pre-bud­get con­sul­ta­tions at the Hy­att ho­tel.”

Mooni­lal list­ed sev­er­al is­sues al­ready in the pub­lic do­main and said if he did hire a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, those would be mat­ters that would be cap­tured.

“I would show a pic­ture of a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter ac­com­pa­nied by an al­leged gang leader to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent for a swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny,” he said, re­fer­ring to the time when Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald took com­mu­ni­ty leader Cedric “Burkie” Burke to her swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House.

“I would show a pic­ture of a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter cam­paign­ing with some­one known to him who is be­fore the court on charges of drug traf­fick­ing and pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal firearms. I would show a pic­ture of a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter who could not ex­plain mak­ing cash de­posits in a com­mer­cial bank. I might even be able to show a pic­ture of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters frol­ick­ing at Mi­a­mi night clubs.”

Mooni­lal al­so ques­tioned why the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter would is­sue a po­lit­i­cal state­ment that chas­tised the Op­po­si­tion.

“This is un­ac­cept­able and has brought the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in­to dis­re­pute and odi­um,” he said.

He al­so said the Gov­ern­ment can im­ple­ment le­gal and pol­i­cy frame­work to treat with this mat­ter of the award of state con­tracts to re­put­ed gang lead­ers or com­pa­nies linked to gangs and said he was will­ing to as­sist the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on the mat­ter.

On Mon­day, Row­ley said gang lead­ers were free to ten­der for State con­tracts as long as they had not been con­vict­ed of any crimes. His state­ment came af­ter Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that com­pa­nies af­fil­i­at­ed with gang lead­ers were earn­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in State con­tracts.