Richard Lord

As pub­lic pres­sure in­creas­es for the dis­missal of her spe­cial ad­vis­er for pub­lic en­gage­ments, Sasha Mo­hammed, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she has no ev­i­dence to con­demn her. Po­lice ques­tioned Mo­hammed about threat­en­ing e-mails al­leged­ly sent from her home com­put­er to Ex­press ed­i­tor in-chief Omatie Ly­der and re­porter An­na Ram­dass. Fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to a com­plaint filed by the news­pa­per, po­lice said the e-mails were sent un­der the alias Jan­ice Thomas. Speak­ing with re­porters at the Hilton Trinidad, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had no ev­i­dence against Mo­hammed.

One day ear­li­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters she had asked her per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to look at Mo­hammed's con­tract. On Tues­day the PM said, based on what she had read, Mo­hammed de­nied send­ing the e-mails. She added: "I do not have ev­i­dence which says that al­le­ga­tion is true and there­fore it is a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion to con­demn some­one (for whom) you do not have ev­i­dence that they have done wrong. "There has been a lot of noise on the is­sue and well so. I have no doubt that it is a very sen­si­tive mat­ter." She stressed: "We can­not act every­time some­body makes an al­le­ga­tion, then I'll end up with no one around me." When, asked about the rea­son for a re­view of Mo­hammed's con­tract, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "The con­tract is be­ing re­viewed be­cause of the per­cep­tion that has been cre­at­ed. The con­tract will guide us on what di­rec­tion we can and can­not go in­to."

A re­port on the re­view was ex­pect­ed to be hand­ed to the PM yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said con­tracts could be var­ied or ter­mi­nat­ed. She added: "I can­not give a de­ci­sion with­out the re­view of the con­tract and the ad­vice of my per­ma­nent sec­re­tary." In a CNC3 news re­port last night, the sta­tion quot­ed Gov­ern­ment sources "as hint­ing that Mo­hammed can be re­moved fol­low­ing a re­view of her con­tract." The re­port stat­ed that "sources now say Mo­hammed could be sent home "im­mi­nent­ly." The sources, ac­cord­ing to the sta­tion, said af­ter re­view­ing Mo­hammed's con­tract, it was sug­gest­ed she could be sent home. It was point­ed out, ac­cord­ing to CNC3, that there was a spe­cif­ic clause in Mo­hammed's con­tract which dealth with per­for­mance. Peo­ples Part­ner­ship sources said the for­mer me­dia work­er's six-month pro­ba­tion had ex­pired.

Yes­ter­day, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan said he had no knowl­edge of the re­port­ed sit­u­a­tion.

Min­is­ter in In­for­ma­tion, Sen­a­tor Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, said dis­cus­sions would be held with the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter's (OPM) per­ma­nent sec­re­tary on the news re­port and if nec­es­sary a state­ment would be is­sued.