Renu­ka Singh

Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona has de­ferred two planned ap­point­ments to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

Car­mona, who had ini­tial­ly planned a me­dia con­fer­ence­for June 12 at9 am to an­nounce the two new com­mis­sion­ers, sus­pend­ed the pro­ceed­ings af­ter he re­ceived an "un­dat­ed, faxed" let­ter from Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley at 8.15 am on Fri­day morn­ing.

The me­dia con­fer­ence be­gan some two hours af­ter its sched­uled time when Car­mona con­firmed that he was not nam­ing the two com­mis­sion­ers as planned be­cause of the let­ter from Row­ley.

"I am pre­pared to ex­er­cise my dis­cre­tion to af­ford ad­di­tion­al time to Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and in the cir­cum­stances, I have since dis­patched a let­ter to the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion in­di­cat­ing that I have af­ford­ed him ad­di­tion­al time and that I ex­pect his re­sponse to my pro­posed ap­point­ments by Mon­day 22 June 2015," Car­mona said.

Car­mona de­tailed the time­line in which his picks for the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion were com­mu­ni­cat­ed to both Row­ley and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing that both of­fices had re­ceived let­ters of con­sul­ta­tion on his two picks since June 9.

He said Row­ley did not com­mu­ni­cate with his of­fice on the pro­posed ap­point­ments but in­stead took the pub­lic fo­rum to state his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with­Car­mona's picks.

"It is in­deed re­gret­table that the ho­n­ourable leader of the op­po­si­tion in his wis­dom sought to first ven­ti­late, in­ter alia, his re­quest for ad­di­tion­al time in the pub­lic do­main," he said.

Car­mona, pri­or to the "un­dat­ed faxed" let­ter from Row­ley, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent was nev­er con­tact­ed.

He said Row­ley nev­er ac­knowl­edged his let­ters of con­sul­ta­tion, nor did he ob­ject to the pro­posed ap­point­ments.

Car­mona said Row­ley nev­er re­quest­ed di­a­logue and dis­cus­sion since the let­ters were first dis­patched on June 9.

An­oth­er let­ter was sent to Row­ley to­day giv­ing him the ad­di­tion­al time re­quest­ed, he said.

"I have af­ford­ed him ad­di­tion­al time and that I ex­pect his re­sponse to my pro­posed ap­point­ments by Mon­day 22 June, 2015," Car­mona said.

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was hit last month when two mem­bers sud­den­ly walked out of their posts. The first res­ig­na­tion by Dr Shel­ley-Anne Lalchan was re­port­ed­ly for per­son­al rea­sons, but deputy com­mis­sion­er Jus­tice Se­bastien Ven­tour quit sud­den­ly af­ter chair­man Zain­ool Ho­sein au­thourised a state­ment ter­mi­nat­ing the pro­tract­ed Email­gate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to key gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter.