Gail Alexan­der

Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan says she stands by her state­ment, re­port­ed in the T&T Guardian, that she had not pre­judged her cab­i­net col­league Anil Roberts.Seep­er­sad-Bachan was asked yes­ter­day about her po­si­tion af­ter Roberts made state­ments on Thurs­day about two T&T Guardian ar­ti­cles con­cern­ing the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. One of the re­ports in­clud­ed state­ments by Seep­er­sad-Bachan.

Roberts said he was send­ing her a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter over her com­ments in the ar­ti­cle un­less she apol­o­gised. Seep­er­sad-Bachan de­clined com­ment on whether she would do so."I stand by my state­ments in the Thurs­day T&T Guardian. I nev­er pre­judged Mr Roberts or made any in­dict­ment. I specif­i­cal­ly stat­ed the par­ty prin­ci­ples of gov­er­nance where of­fi­cials are con­cerned, es­pe­cial­ly min­is­ters who may have to an­swer charges, that such per­sons ought to step aside while any pro­ceed­ings take place."

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said it was sole­ly Roberts's choice whether or not he at­tend­ed yes­ter­day's COP ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing, to which he was in­vit­ed, to out­line his po­si­tion on the mat­ter.Roberts made it clear on Thurs­day he was not at­tend­ing.Seep­er­sad-Bachan said he had been in­vit­ed ac­cord­ing to the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.She could not say what would tran­spire if he didn't at­tend.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on Roberts' send­ing him a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter and seek­ing an apol­o­gy, for­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas said: "I do not think, in light of my in­volve­ment in the mat­ter, I should make any com­ment on that sto­ry to the T&T Guardian, or any­body for that mat­ter."