Richard Lord

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must go for pro­tect­ing for­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP and for­mer min­is­ter Jack Warn­er for three years.He al­so claimed sev­er­al min­is­ters had be­come mul­ti-mil­lion­aires since com­ing in to of­fice.As ex­am­ples, he al­leged one min­is­ter had $3 mil­lion in their car trunk and an­oth­er went to pur­chase a $4 mil­lion house in Eller­slie Park, St Clair, in cash.Row­ley said so dur­ing the first pub­lic meet­ing of the par­ty at New Set­tle­ment Recre­ation Ground, Ca­roni, on Wednes­day night in sup­port of its can­di­date for the Ju­ly 29 Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion.Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­mit­ted dur­ing a meet­ing of her Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) on Mon­day that she pro­tect­ed Warn­er for three years.It was at the same UNC meet­ing that the PM spoke about Warn­er re­fus­ing to trav­el with her on Gov­ern­ment busi­ness in the US, Haiti and Cana­da be­cause he was of in­ter­est to the US au­thor­i­ties.

Row­ley said Wednes­day the PM "is now telling you that since last No­vem­ber Jack Warn­er can't trav­el. What PM of T&T could know and could have in the Cab­i­net a min­is­ter who has that prob­lem."He added: "In Trinidad and To­ba­go the PM could know that your sit­u­a­tion is so bad, that you lost your (US) Green Card and she doesn't do a thing, she doesn't say a thing un­til the same per­son trig­gers a by-elec­tion in Ch­agua­nas... so she knew since last year No­vem­ber that the US au­thor­i­ties were in­ter­est­ed in him and that cer­tain ac­tions can re­sult in him hav­ing a new sta­tus."Row­ley con­tin­ued: "The Prime Min­is­ter didn't say a word, she was quite con­tent then for the min­is­ter to stay home, to evade the US au­thor­i­ties while the meet­ing took place."On­ly now in this de­ba­cle she is telling us that it wasn't on­ly Haiti he didn't go, he didn't go to a meet­ing in Cana­da too."What man­ner of PM is this, where you could tell a min­is­ter I want you to go to In­dia with me, Cana­da , Haiti and the min­is­ter is say­ing I am not com­ing."And the PM knows the rea­son why he is not go­ing up in the air and she tol­er­ates and en­cour­ages it."

Row­ley re­mind­ed his au­di­ence that the PM ad­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing Warn­er for three years days ear­li­er."So the PM has ad­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing crim­i­nal con­duct in the Cab­i­net of T&T and tonight I call for her res­ig­na­tion," Row­ley added.Ear­li­er he said Per­sad-Bisses­sar must an­swer cer­tain ques­tions.He asked: "Who was the min­is­ter with $3 mil­lion in his car trunk? He said it was on­ly af­ter Cab­i­net min­is­ters "fall out they re­veal to you what the oth­er one was do­ing."He said that in the wake of re­marks by Per­sad-Bisses­sar about for­mer MP and min­is­ter Jack Warn­er's US Green Card.Row­ley said he want­ed the PM to "iden­ti­fy the mil­lion-dol­lar prop­er­ties you all have been buy­ing abroad in Cana­da."He posed an­oth­er ques­tion to the PM."Do we have to wait to find out which min­is­ter right now is liv­ing in a $4 mil­lion house that he didn't buy be­cause the trans­fer had not been done?"Row­ley posed an­oth­er ques­tion: "How long, how long, Oh Lord, shall we wait for the Prime Min­is­ter to tell us which min­is­ter went to buy a house in Eller­slie Park with cash?"

Deal­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar's claim that Warn­er's mon­ey seemed to be com­ing from a bot­tom­less pit, Row­ley said she did not want that ques­tion an­swered "when Jack Warn­er's mon­ey was pay­ing for her hair-styl­ist, to fix teeth, to fix clothes, pay­ing their mort­gage, pay­ing their man, pay­ing their woman, they had no in­ter­est from where the mon­ey was com­ing from then."He added that there were al­le­ga­tions that tax­pay­ers mon­ey that went to the TTFF for World Cup foot­ball end­ed up in Jack Warn­er's per­son­al re­sources. "The Prime Min­is­ter knows that, she and Ram­lo­gan have noth­ing to do about try­ing to find that mon­ey," he added.He said: "All on a sud­den, all these UNC peo­ple who were liv­ing like leech­es off Jack Warn­er, all of a sud­den that want to know where his mon­ey com­ing from."

Row­ley said Warn­er claimed he spent mil­lions on the TOP cam­paign in the 2013 THA polls in Jan­u­ary. Row­ley said the PM was the "ma­jor ben­e­fi­cia­ry" of all of Warn­er's re­sources as her Gov­ern­ment "rode in­to of­fice on Jack Warn­er's largesse."He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had no prob­lem when the po­lice didn't in­ves­ti­gate Warn­er.Row­ley said the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions "in­struct­ed" the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate Warn­er un­der the Cus­toms Act for the (al­leged) bribery mat­ter.Row­ley re­ferred to Per­sad-Bisses­sar as Madon­na, adding: "It is a lie for the Prime Min­is­ter to pre­tend that she didn't know where Warn­er's mon­ey was com­ing from."