Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he is pre­pared to ap­pear be­fore the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges to an­swer the charge of mis­lead­ing the House.Row­ley said that dur­ing a sched­uled news con­fer­ence at his Charles Street, Port-of-Spain of­fice, yes­ter­day.He was re­ferred to the com­mit­tee by House Speak­er Wade Mark on Fri­day af­ter a mo­tion was pre­sent­ed by Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.Mark said a pri­ma fa­cie case was made out against Row­ley for mis­lead­ing the House at a sit­ting on April 20.At that sit­ting Row­ley told leg­is­la­tors he was told by staff at T&T's mis­sion in New York (lat­er iden­ti­fied as the T&T mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions) that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had ex­pressed con­cerns about the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the staff there.

On more than one oc­ca­sion dur­ing the sit­ting Warn­er and House Leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal had asked Row­ley to apol­o­gise but he de­clined.Yes­ter­day, Row­ley said that he would not on­ly ap­pear be­fore the com­mit­tee but would apol­o­gise at the ap­pro­pri­ate time.Row­ley said in the light of the chal­lenges to his state­ment in Par­lia­ment he had been con­duct­ing "very de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tions on the mat­ter and at this mo­ment I can tell that there is some con­fu­sion with the facts."He said: "At the ap­pro­pri­ate time, the cor­rect in­for­ma­tion and any rel­e­vant apolo­gies would be forth­com­ing."Row­ley was the sec­ond Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment to be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges dur­ing the cur­rent ses­sion. The first was for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. (RL)