Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to main­tain his de­ci­sion to with­draw from the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil on the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try, de­spite an at­tempt by four promi­nent busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions for him to re­con­sid­er. The Pri­vate Sec­tor/Civ­il So­ci­ety Group is ex­pect­ed to make a joint call to­day for Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­turn to the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment on pro­cure­ment. The Pri­vate Sec­tor/Civ­il So­ci­ety Group, which is made up of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil on the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute. Chair­man of the group, Win­ston Ri­ley, said the or­gan­i­sa­tions would present their po­si­tion on the is­sue of pub­lic pro­cure­ment and "call on the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to re­join the JSC on pub­lic pro­cure­ment."

Ri­ley said a news con­fer­ence was sched­uled for this morn­ing at the Hilton Trinidad to achieve that ob­jec­tive. Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Row­ley said he hoped the group, which was dis­play­ing such alacrity, vigour and in­tent to get the Op­po­si­tion to re­con­sid­er its po­si­tion on the mat­ter would show the same prin­ci­ples for what the Op­po­si­tion was try­ing to high­light for ben­e­fit of the pub­lic. He said the Gov­ern­ment was award­ing ma­jor con­tracts to se­lect­ed peo­ple be­fore leg­is­la­tion is passed in Par­lia­ment.

Row­ley in­sist­ed the Op­po­si­tion had made all its con­tri­bu­tions to the JSC and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment was yet to out­line its pol­i­cy po­si­tion on pub­lic pro­cure­ment. Mean­while, chair­man of the JSC, Plan­ning and the Econ­o­my Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie last week ap­pealed to Row­ley to re­con­sid­er his de­ci­sion and re­turn to the com­mit­tee. And Ri­ley said: "The group will al­so speak to the Prime Min­is­ter on this crit­i­cal mat­ter that in­volves us all."