Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment was of the view that the team sug­gest­ed for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's de­part­ment to probe sev­er­al PNM projects was above board when the mat­ter arose, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day.

She was speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley's bud­get re­ply in which he raised ques­tions about the AG's team, loose­ly dubbed the "A-Team". Per­sad- Bisses­sar said it was felt the team could do the work in­volved. She asked: "So what is the an­swer? Do we leave these things (projects) in place and keep these fi­as­cos and the squan­der­ma­nia that took place?" She added: "It is im­pugn­ing the in­tegri­ty of the per­sons who were ap­point­ed. If Dr Row­ley has ev­i­dence, I'm sure he will bring it – there is none. 'All he did was al­leged they were friends of the At­tor­ney Gen­era. That's not good enough."

Per­sad- Bisses­sar said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan would re­spond on Row­ley's al­le­ga­tions. On Row­ley's al­le­ga­tions on clients of Ross Ad­ver­tis­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "I can't speak for clients of Ross Ltd. I don't know who the clients are," She said bud­get de­bate may be "lop­sided" and Gov­ern­ment may have to put some Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors in­to the Low­er House de­bate to speak on the bud­get. Per­sad -Bisses­sar said she was dis­ap­point­ed at Row­ley's bud­get re­ply. She added: "I thought I'd see some­thing dif­fer­ent. Hav­ing dis­placed his leader, I thought he will come with some of his plans and poli­cies so I was dis­ap­point­ed at what he did, re­hash­ing the same old poli­cies which the coun­try con­demned when they vot­ed against them."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­mand­ed an apol­o­gy for cer­tain of Row­ley's re­marks on the lap­top is­sue. She said it was in­sult­ing and of­fen­sive to all chil­dren who have en­tered sec­ondary school. She called for Row­ley to with­draw the re­marks. Per­sad- Bisses­sar knocked the "elit­ist" ap­proach that some chil­dren could have com­put­ers and oth­ers should not. The PM re­it­er­at­ed there would be no new tax­es or in­crease in any tax. She said what Row­ley said on the prop­er­ty tax was "to­tal­ly false." Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so re­it­er­at­ed that the min­i­mum wage would be re­viewed. She said Row­ley's pre­sen­ta­tion held an ab­sence of facts and analy­sis. She said it was based on fear and prej­u­dice and re­hashed pro­pos­als pre­sent­ed dur­ing the elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "He mis­rep­re­sent­ed and went from left to right and con­tra­dict­ed him­self on many is­sues. "Mr Row­ley re­placed his leader, yet he stands to­day and de­fends the same failed poli­cies of his for­mer leader–Alutrint and Rapid Rail. "If he had re­placed Mr Man­ning be­fore elec­tion then he would have kept those things ... he said not a word about crime, the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty in the coun­try. "He has not giv­en a sin­gle pro­pos­al about Cli­co on how the is­sue should be done."