A dirty lit­tle se­cret in re­la­tion to cor­rup­tion charges be­ing slapped against two for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment min­is­ters is said to be one of the main rea­sons why Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is hes­i­tant to take de­ci­sive ac­tion fol­low­ing the Sec­tion 34 im­broglio. But sources say while de­ci­sive ac­tion was tak­en against Mary King and Collin Par­tap, some Cab­i­net mem­bers are ar­gu­ing that the greater good would be to pro­tect the Gov­ern­ment from the im­pli­ca­tions of any fall­out if such ac­tion is tak­en.

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter, Sun­day Guardian learned, has con­fid­ed in close al­lies that she was duped in­to be­liev­ing the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act 2011 was aimed at eas­ing the back­log of cas­es be­fore the na­tion's courts and not in­tend­ed to pave the way to free­dom for Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fi­nanciers, Ish Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son.

A Cab­i­net source told the Sun­day Guardian that while Sec­tion 34 of the con­tro­ver­sial act has been re­pealed, the Prime Min­is­ter re­mains dis­turbed by the turn of the events. "The Prime Min­is­ter is very up­set over what tran­spired. The Prime Min­is­ter was tak­en by sur­prise by the con­tro­ver­sial clause, but moved to im­me­di­ate­ly cor­rect what hap­pened. She wast­ed ab­solute­ly no time," the Cab­i­net source said.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands sev­er­al mem­bers of the Cab­i­net have al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the im­pact the turn of events could have on the Gov­ern­ment and have sug­gest­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter that tough de­ci­sions may have to be made.

Con­spir­a­cy?

It is said that the rush to have the con­tro­ver­sial clause pro­claimed was part of a con­spir­a­cy to have the fraud charges aris­ing out of the Pi­ar­co Air­port scan­dal dropped. An al­leged con­spir­a­cy, ac­cord­ing to well-placed sources, al­so led to for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Franklin Khan and Er­ic Williams fac­ing the courts when cor­rup­tion charges sur­faced more than nine years ago. The charges against both min­is­ters were dropped ow­ing to un­re­li­able ev­i­dence that failed to demon­strate a pri­ma fa­cie case.

A cur­rent gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial was fin­gered as the mas­ter­mind in that con­spir­a­cy. Po­lice re­fused to say yes­ter­day whether that mat­ter is still en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of in­ves­ti­ga­tors. It is al­leged the plot came about be­cause an of­fi­cial had stopped re­ceiv­ing jobs due to the change of board mem­bers at Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um when Khan was ap­point­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter un­der the Patrick Man­ning gov­ern­ment.

The plot was al­leged­ly hatched at a beach re­sort in Ma­yaro and a doc­u­ment was draft­ed im­pli­cat­ing Khan and Williams in ac­cept­ing bribes and seis­mic con­tracts. Copies of the cor­re­spon­dence were al­so for­ward­ed to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as the Siparia MP, who read out the con­tents of one of the let­ters dur­ing a sit­ting of Par­lia­ment in April 2005. Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Par­lia­ment she had found the let­ter in her mail­box.

On the ba­sis of the al­le­ga­tions, Man­ning re­ferred the let­ter to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who hand­ed it over to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for in­ves­ti­ga­tion by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Welling­ton Vir­gil of the Spe­cial Branch. Both Khan and Williams were sub­se­quent­ly charged but lat­er freed. In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed the let­ter was sus­pect. Sev­er­al text mes­sages sent to the Prime Min­is­ter seek­ing re­spons­es re­mained unan­swered up to yes­ter­day.