Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley not on­ly re­spond­ed to the al­le­ga­tions made against him by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine but has upped the ante. At his news con­fer­ence Thurs­day, the Prime Min­is­ter claimed that the Chief Sec­re­tary vi­o­lat­ed par­lia­men­tary prin­ci­ples by bring­ing a ‘stranger’–ie, a non-mem­ber of the THA in­to the cham­ber via video, sub­orned an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and that he is ful­ly com­mit­ted to hav­ing the courts de­cide on guilt or in­no­cence of Mr Au­gus­tine.

It is clear that there is much more to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and un­earthed in this ‘Spy vs Spy’ po­lit­i­cal tan­gle now play­ing it­self out in the po­lit­i­cal gulf be­tween Scar­bor­ough and Port-of-Spain. As the al­le­ga­tions and the coun­ters get ‘cu­ri­ouser and cu­ri­ouser’, as the rab­bit hole widens and deep­ens as in Lewis Car­rol’s fairy­tale of Al­ice in Won­der­land, is any­one of those named and the yet-to-be-named get­ting wor­ried as Al­ice did: “I do wish I hadn’t cried so much.”

Too late, this is a mat­ter which has to be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed to find the truth.

At this stage of the claims, al­le­ga­tions, and coun­ters there are clear dif­fer­ences be­tween what has been put for­ward first by Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine. He has based his con­tention on the so far un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed in­for­ma­tion giv­en to him by a large­ly un­known in­di­vid­ual, who was not even aware that he was be­ing record­ed when he made the al­le­ga­tions.

At the oth­er end of the im­broglio, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley has ad­vanced his ar­gu­ments on par­lia­men­tary prin­ci­ples, giv­en ful­some de­nials about any in­volve­ment in what has been charged, and has in­di­cat­ed his will­ing­ness to place his job and ca­reer on the line in de­fence of his state­ments.

It is ac­cept­ed though that there is like­ly much more to come.

Of im­por­tance too is Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s force­ful de­nial of any in­volve­ment as al­leged; so too re­spect­ed se­nior coun­sel Gilbert Pe­ter­son has said that the al­le­ga­tions made against him by the in­di­vid­ual pos­ing as a ‘whistle­blow­er’, are un­true.

Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher now has the na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that her of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gate to fi­nal­i­ty the claims and coun­ter­claims in the in­ter­est of the na­tion. What’s more, she has her own in­tegri­ty and job to pro­tect. In this re­gard, the CoP must sure­ly in­tend to keep at arm’s length from the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

It has be­come ac­cept­ed prac­tice in the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture of T&T that when politi­cians find them­selves, their par­ties, gov­ern­ment, and op­po­si­tion in dif­fi­cul­ties, they throw up cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions as a means of cov­er­ing their tracks and in the process utilise the cov­er of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege. Such prac­tices have been suc­cess­ful in the ab­sence of thor­ough and/or com­plet­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Two such in­fa­mous al­le­ga­tions, al­though hav­ing dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics–have been made in Par­lia­ment: one, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, as leader of the op­po­si­tion, brought the Email­gate mat­ter to the House, which the po­lice were not able to solve.

The oth­er was MP/min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin’s as­sault on the char­ac­ter of Dr Row­ley and his fa­ther with­out any sub­stan­ti­at­ing proof.

This can be a wa­ter­shed in­stance; much is at stake, so wher­ev­er this rab­bit hole leads, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers must fol­low.