Gail Alexan­der

So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who was with Gov­ern­ment mem­bers at the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in Aus­tralia, was not list­ed among T&T's del­e­ga­tion for the con­fer­ence, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley has said. Row­ley ques­tioned Ra­mad­hars­ingh's par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Com­mon­wealth meet­ing while speak­ing at a PNM meet­ing at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day. Row­ley said de­spite the state of emer­gency the Prime Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment team were off gal­li­vant­i­ng in Aus­tralia, even some min­is­ters who were not on the list...in Aus­tralia too." Row­ley said Ra­mad­hars­ingh's name was not on the del­e­ga­tion list for the event. He said he sus­pect­ed oth­er min­is­ters might be join­ing the T&T team dur­ing their stopover in Lon­don en route home.

"...Is one big par­ty for some and oth­ers ketch­ing hell," Row­ley added. PNM deputy leader Mar­lene Mc­don­ald al­so added, "What is Ra­mad­hars­ingh do­ing in Aus­tralia?" PNM MP Amery Browne said the Gov­ern­ment had stuck T&T with the state of emer­gency and had "...jumped on a plane and took off for Aus­tralia, lim­ing and drink­ing and tak­ing pho­tographs and post­pon­ing flights for no good rea­son, se­cure in the knowl­edge" that protests in T&T could not be done due to the state of emer­gency's reg­u­la­tions. Browne added, "Once again, Kam­la, you have made a ter­ri­ble mis­cal­cu­la­tion. Every rope has an end and every air­line must land at some point...you have to come back and face the mu­sic." "Cit­i­zens are to­tal­ly fed up of your dis­ap­pear­ing acts," Browne added, Browne not­ed that the 2012 bud­get de­bate was the first time a So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter-like Ra­mad­hars­ingh-did not speak in de­bate.