Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night as­sured the na­tion that if Hous­ing Min­is­ter Mc Don­ald is found guilty of any wrong do­ing he will take ac­tion, say­ing he would not ig­nore new in­for­ma­tion which has come to light.

Row­ley said af­ter fresh ev­i­dence sur­faced in the me­dia yes­ter­day, in­volv­ing Mc Don­ald's hus­band Michael Carew and his broth­er Lennox Carew, he had a dis­cus­sion with her and would make a pro­nounce­ment on the mat­ter "short­ly".

"This morn­ing I saw what ap­pears to be new in­for­ma­tion and I spent the day look­ing at it. And I just want to give the as­sur­ance to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that if the facts bear out, if I have to take ac­tion, then I will."

The PM was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion on the mat­ter from CNC3 news an­chor Gol­da Lee-Bruce last night, as she had a stu­dio in­ter­view with him on his Gov­ern­ment's first six months in of­fice.

Yes­ter­day, a re­port sur­faced that Fix­in T&T head Kirk Wait­he had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from the Par­lia­ment which showed that Mc Don­ald's hus­band Michael Carew and a di­rec­tor of the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion was em­ployed at her Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy of­fice for five years, while Michael's broth­er, Lennox Carew, still worked at the MP's of­fice.

Michael Carew, who worked at the of­fice from June 1, 2010 to Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015, earned the sec­ond high­est salary of $13,400 on the con­stituen­cy pay­roll for the full par­lia­men­tary term. Lennox be­gan work­ing in the of­fice on March 1, 2011 and has been in re­ceipt of the high­est salary of $14,000 out of 13 peo­ple work­ing in the of­fice.

The Par­lia­ment pays the salaries of all em­ploy­ees in the 41 con­stituen­cy of­fices.

Cit­ing Par­lia­ment rules gov­ern­ing the hir­ing of con­stituen­cy staff, Wait­he ques­tioned whether Mc­Don­ald was not in breach. He al­so not­ed a con­nec­tion be­tween Mc­Don­ald, Michael Carew and the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, which is cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion over grants it re­ceived be­fore it of­fi­cial­ly be­came a du­ly reg­is­tered non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Waite for­ward­ed the in­for­ma­tion to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion.

Dur­ing the hour and a half in­ter­view last night, the PM said there were a se­ries of al­le­ga­tions that were made against Mc­Don­ald, which was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and a pro­nounce­ment was made, which did not sup­port the al­le­ga­tions, adding the com­mis­sion looks at the con­duct of pub­lic of­fi­cials.

"That com­mis­sion looked at some al­le­ga­tion and made a rul­ing which did not war­rant any ac­tion on the part of the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM. I have to act on facts. As I just said, I saw this morn­ing some­thing that was fright­en­ing and I did not ig­nore it." Asked if he took a risk by se­lect­ing Mc­Don­ald as a can­di­date to con­test the Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion giv­en that the al­le­ga­tions against her were al­ready in the pub­lic do­main, Row­ley said al­le­ga­tions were levied against him as well and were tak­en be­fore Com­mis­sion of En­quiries to de­fend him­self.

"Al­le­ga­tions in them­selves are not the ba­sis for act­ing. In fact, they are sup­port­ed by in­for­ma­tion, which in­di­cate that there is some­thing to deal with. So the fact that an al­le­ga­tion was made it means that you look at it and ac­cept it as a case-by-case ba­sis."

The PM said "maybe if the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion had not been giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ves­ti­gate the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion in 2010, the PNM's screen­ing com­mit­tee may have tak­en a dif­fer­ent ver­sion. Sub­se­quent to that, oth­er al­le­ga­tions are be­ing made. And those al­le­ga­tions have to be dealt with."

Row­ley said, how­ev­er, that his Cab­i­net mem­bers are re­spon­si­ble for their con­duct.

Asked how much time he need­ed be­fore he acts and if Mc­Don­ald was like­ly to re­main a Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter in his Cab­i­net, Row­ley said every is­sue has to be dealt with "as a case in point and a case-by-case ba­sis".

Asked by Lee-Bruce why he made a de­ci­sion to ap­point Mc­Don­ald as a Cab­i­net mem­ber al­though the is­sue in­volv­ing the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion was be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Row­ley replied,"You hear what I am say­ing, one can­not act on al­le­ga­tions. Al­le­ga­tions have to be sup­port­ed by some el­e­ment. Miss Mc­Don­ald was a pub­lic fig­ure."