Rose­marie Sant

?"Ill-ad­vised and pre­cip­i­tous."

That's how Ca­roni East MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie is de­scrib­ing the ap­pear­ance of for­mer sports min­is­ter Anil Roberts on the plat­form at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Diego Mar­tin. Now, Tewarie says, the UNC must tell the coun­try what Roberts' ap­pear­ance stands for.

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian about Roberts' re­turn to the UNC front­line, Tewarie said he had noth­ing against Roberts, since "he used to sit next to me in the Cab­i­net."

How­ev­er, Tewarie said he was work­ing with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment can­di­dates in his con­stituen­cy and "was sur­prised to learn he (Roberts) was on the plat­form and more sur­prised than ever that he was a speak­er."

He said he had told UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar how he felt about it.

Tewarie added: "The UNC must con­vince the coun­try that it stands for some­thing and ex­plain to the coun­try what it stands for.

"I con­sid­er this an es­sen­tial task in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions and in the days lead­ing up to the next gen­er­al elec­tion. The cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go are fed up of politi­cians who stand for noth­ing and who will drift any­where the wind blows."

Tewarie was one of the few MPs who agreed to speak on the record about Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion to in­vite Roberts to speak on the plat­form on the same day High Court judge Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er quashed the au­dit re­port in­to the Life­S­port pro­gramme.

For­mer Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz held a sim­i­lar view, say­ing Roberts was "tar­nished and his name has been called in ques­tion­able cir­cum­stances."

He said the au­dit which was quashed by the judge did not deal with whether there was "im­pro­pri­ety and there are still ques­tions to an­swer."

He added that as the min­is­ter of sports at the time Roberts "has ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the $400 mil­lion which in­volved monies spent in the Life­S­port pro­gramme."

Cadiz, who re­mains a mem­ber of the UNC, said he did not sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion to bring Roberts back, adding it shows that "her judg­ment is to­tal­ly off and she has no right to be po­lit­i­cal leader or Prime Min­is­ter."

Oth­er UNC MPs spoke to the T&T Guardian off the record and ad­mit­ted to be­ing "shocked" by Roberts' ap­pear­ance and ad­mit­ted to be­ing "even more sur­prised when he spoke on the plat­form and was asked about re­turn­ing to the peo­ple's house be­cause the mat­ter was nev­er raised with us."

Some MPs re­fused to speak about the is­sue, say­ing they were "afraid" to say any­thing and "they stay­ing far from that."

Gag or­der on is­sue

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that at a cau­cus on Tues­day, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans were told they should not speak pub­licly about the is­sue which has caused rum­blings with­in the par­ty.

One MP said: "It is a high risk strat­e­gy. It could ei­ther work for us or it could work against us."

An­oth­er MP said Per­sad-Bisses­sar took a "uni­lat­er­al" de­ci­sion and now "we wait to see whether there will be any fall­out, es­pe­cial­ly in the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions."

There are con­cerns that the de­ci­sion at this time would be "fod­der for the PNM on their po­lit­i­cal plat­form" as the cam­paign for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions heats up, since the po­lice probe in­to Life­S­port con­tin­ues.

Asked whether he felt it would af­fect the par­ty's chances at the polls, Tewarie ad­mit­ted that "what hap­pened in Diego Mar­tin will af­fect peo­ple's think­ing and their con­scious­ness and will raise ques­tions in their minds and will per­haps cause some con­fu­sion."

But he said it was up to the UNC "whether it is pre­pared to leave an er­ror of judg­ment be­hind, speak hon­est­ly and truth­ful­ly to the sup­port­ers and do the re­quired work on the ground for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions."

But Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal does not be­lieve there will be a fall­out for the par­ty. Rather, he said "mem­bers of the par­ty should feel strength­ened be­cause we have to arm our­selves with po­lit­i­cal fire­pow­er."

Mooni­lal said while he "un­der­stood the con­cerns of oth­er peo­ple, Anil is a com­pelling speak­er who has al­ways been a thorn in the side of the PNM and he has a role to play in re­mov­ing Row­ley and the PNM."

He said both Roberts and re­cent­ly-ap­point­ed Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen "have a fire­brand style. They are vo­cif­er­ous, well re­searched and are strong speak­ers. They will add to the fire­pow­er."

If Roberts is to be brought back to the "peo­ple's house" at this time it would have to be through the Sen­ate.

Sources said yes­ter­day that of the UNC line-up in the Sen­ate, the per­son who he may re­place is COP mem­ber Dr Rodger Samuel, who had a pre­vi­ous "dis­agree­ment" with Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Mooni­lal, how­ev­er, re­fused to spec­u­late on who Roberts would re­place in the Sen­ate, say­ing that sen­a­tors serve at the "be­hest of the Op­po­si­tion Leader."