Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­nied the lat­est sex al­le­ga­tion against Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh had in­flu­enced her de­ci­sion to fire him from her Cab­i­net.But de­spite the rag­ing pub­lic de­bate sparked by the al­le­ga­tions, she is not go­ing to ask him to step down as an MP.

Say­ing she had no pri­or knowl­edge of the al­le­ga­tion made by Cen­tral house­wife Pa­tri­cia Singh Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was the al­leged in­ci­dent on the Caribbean Air­lines flight from To­ba­go last month which prompt­ed her to fire Ra­mad­hars­ingh."My de­ci­sion had al­ready been made," Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the me­dia dur­ing a break at the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce's an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing at the Hilton Trinidad, St Ann's.

"My de­ci­sion was made com­ing out of the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Caribbean Air­lines."I re­quest­ed the in­for­ma­tion, from re­ports, from Caribbean Air­lines, from AATT and the min­is­ter him­self, read all the re­ports, his re­spons­es and it was on that ba­sis I made my de­ci­sion."By the time these (lat­est) al­le­ga­tions had arisen, I had al­ready made my de­ci­sion."Per­sad-Bisses­sar fired Ra­mad­hars­ingh on March 25 af­ter meet­ing with him at her Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do, home.

This came 11 days af­ter re­ports Ra­mad­hars­ingh was al­leged to have en­gaged in dis­or­der­ly con­duct on board a flight from To­ba­go on March 16. The for­mer min­is­ter al­leged­ly threat­ened CAL flight at­ten­dant Ronelle Laid­low, 25, af­ter re­fus­ing to com­ply with her in­struc­tions and in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly touched her when he reached for her ID badge which was pinned to her blouse.In that in­ci­dent, Ra­mad­hars­ingh had apol­o­gised for his be­hav­iour on board the flight but de­nied he touched Laid­low.

In the lat­est al­le­ga­tion, Singh claims she was forced to con­duct sex acts on the for­mer min­is­ter in or­der to fast track her ac­qui­si­tion of a house from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).Ra­mad­hars­ingh has de­nied the al­le­ga­tions.

Cops ques­tion ac­cuser

The po­lice are cur­rent­ly in­vest­ing the mat­ter and the T&T Guardian un­der­stands the po­lice ques­tioned Singh on the mat­ter on Mon­day.Sev­er­al peo­ple, in­clud­ing her for­mer Cab­i­net col­league Jack Warn­er and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son and Amery Browne, have sug­gest­ed the al­le­ga­tion was not new and that the PM had pri­or knowl­edge of the mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­mit­ted to re­ceiv­ing a text from a re­porter in­ves­ti­gat­ing the lat­est claim on the same day she fired Ra­mad­hars­ingh but said she had texted back ask­ing for more de­tails."So on that said day the text was sent to me and I texted back ask­ing are there any more de­tails. I have the text. By the way it's still on my phone."The re­porter wasn't ask­ing any ques­tions but rather giv­ing me in­fo that there were al­le­ga­tions by a woman. De­tails in the sto­ry, those mat­ters were not shared with me."

Asked what she thought of the claims, the PM said: "I be­lieve Dr Ra­mad­hars­ingh has is­sued a state­ment on the mat­ter in which he has de­nied the al­le­ga­tions. At the mo­ment that is all I can stand on. I am not aware of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

MP job in­tact for now

She said, how­ev­er, that there were no plans to ask Ra­mad­hars­ingh to step down as MP or from the UNC. She said in the par­ty he would con­tin­ue "to have his day in the sun."Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­nied re­ports she had, in her ca­pac­i­ty as Ra­mad­hars­ingh's re­place­ment, or­dered that the fir­ing of any­one from the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment.