Renu­ka Singh

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is ex­pect­ed to ap­point an in­ter­na­tion­al li­ai­son of­fi­cer to the par­ty's ex­ec­u­tive by the end of the year.The po­si­tion will link PNM sup­port­ers through­out the di­as­po­ra–New York, Mi­a­mi, Toron­to–to the par­ty head­quar­ters in Trinidad.Par­ty chair­man Franklin Khan an­nounced the po­si­tion at yes­ter­day's post-gen­er­al coun­cil press brief­ing at Bal­isi­er House, Wood­brook.He al­so de­nied that Row­ley made the trip to New York in or­der to se­cure fund­ing for the par­ty in the build-up to the elec­tions.

"Well, ob­vi­ous­ly, he speaks to busi­ness peo­ple and there are peo­ple in the in­ter­na­tion­al di­as­po­ra that may want to make con­tri­bu­tions to the par­ty and we wel­come that once it is clean mon­ey," he said.Khan said the amend­ed con­sti­tu­tion al­lowed for the new ex­ec­u­tive li­ai­son po­si­tion."That per­son will of­fi­cial­ly sit ex-of­fi­cio on the gen­er­al coun­cil. This is re­al­ly to pull in the PNM di­as­po­ra from all over the world," he said.He said "func­tion­ing" par­ty groups al­ready ex­ist­ed in New York, Mi­a­mi, Fort Laud­erdale, Toron­to and Lon­don.

"There is even a re­quest to open one in Ghana," Khan said.Khan said un­der the par­ty's old con­sti­tu­tion there was no mech­a­nism in place to co-or­di­nate the in­ter­na­tion­al arm of the PNM.

"Once we put this po­si­tion in place, we will al­so have a Web-based pay­ment sys­tem sce­nario for in­ter­na­tion­al mem­bers and the di­as­po­ra to pay. We can charge them, and I am say­ing this off the cuff, we can charge them US$100 a year, and we can have thou­sands of peo­ple in the in­ter­na­tion­al cities pay­ing and that is a tremen­dous re­source base," he said.De­spite spec­u­la­tion on so­cial me­dia that Row­ley's meet­ings were poor­ly at­tend­ed, Khan said one meet­ing was "stand­ing room on­ly" and had over 300 at­ten­dees in New York.

"It was a trip worth the while," Khan said, adding that Row­ley was al­so in­vit­ed to Lon­don for a sim­i­lar speak­ing vis­it.