Pol­i­tics

1-MAN­NING'S DEATH

The death of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning tops the list of po­lit­i­cal hap­pen­ings this year.

News of Man­ning's death on the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 9, plunged the coun­try in­to mourn­ing.

The Gov­ern­ment of­fered and the fam­i­ly ac­cept­ed a state fu­ner­al for the man who had been the longest serv­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Par­lia­ment, hav­ing a stint of 44 years as the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do West.

Man­ning had been ail­ing for some time hav­ing suf­fered a stroke in Jan­u­ary 2012. He re­cov­ered and re­turned to the Par­lia­ment, from where he even­tu­al­ly re­signed in Jan­u­ary 2015.

2-MAR­LENE MC­DON­ALD DIS­MISSED

Less than a year in­to of­fice, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley act­ed de­ci­sive­ly in March when he fired then hous­ing min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

Row­ley told the T&T Guardian's sis­ter sta­tion CNC3 on the night he dis­missed Mc­Don­ald that he could not ig­nore new rev­e­la­tions which had sur­faced in a mat­ter whiuch was be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

He said "an is­sue had sur­faced some­time be­fore and cer­tain ad­ju­di­ca­tions were made (by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion). (But) This morn­ing (in the news­pa­per) 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 what is there (in the ar­ti­cle) and I have to take ac­tion, then I will," he said.

Row­ley's ac­tion came even as the Po­lice Ser­vice ini­ti­at­ed a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of fraud and mis­con­duct lev­elled against the Port-of-Spain South Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment soon af­ter she was fired from the Cab­i­net.

It is al­leged that in 2008, Mc­Don­ald abused her min­is­te­r­i­al pow­er to fa­cil­i­tate a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) home for her part­ner and helped pay for it.

The mat­ter is al­so be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, where it re­mained even as the year came to a close.

3-CAB­I­NET RESHUF­FLES

In dis­miss­ing Mc­Don­ald, PM Row­ley did the first reshuf­fle of his new Cab­i­net, re­as­sign­ing Ran­dall Mitchell from Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion to Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment. He re­as­signed Max­ie Cuffie from Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Com­mu­ni­ca­tion to Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and as­signed Stu­art Young as Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, in ad­di­tion to his port­fo­lio as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Row­ley told the me­dia in Sep­tem­ber that Mc Don­ald had every right to be re­in­stat­ed to the Cab­i­net if al­le­ga­tions against her proved false.

Al­though ad­mit­ting he did not know how the mat­ter would go, Row­ley said if it is found that she did not com­mit a crime, "then she has every right to be re­in­stat­ed".

There was wide­spread spec­u­la­tion that Mc­Don­ald's re­turn would have come in the sec­ond Cab­i­net reshuf­fle in Oc­to­ber. But with the mat­ter against her still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion the ex­pect­ed re­turn did not hap­pen.

In his sec­ond reshuf­fle, Row­ley dis­missed for­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter re­tired Brigadier An­cil An­toine.

Olivierre's dis­missal was wide­ly linked to a con­fronta­tion which she had with protest­ing res­i­dents of La Brea, the con­stituen­cy which she rep­re­sents in the Par­lia­ment.

While there was no word on the rea­son for the re­moval of An­toine, there was spec­u­la­tion that it was linked to prob­lems with CEPEP which fell un­der his watch.

In the reshuf­fle, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Franklin Khan was re­as­signed as Min­is­ter of En­er­gy. He was re­placed in Lo­cal gov­ern­ment by For­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein. Fitzger­ald Hinds re­placed An­toine as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties. Hinds was re­placed as Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter by Ro­han Sinanan.

4-LO­CAL GOV­ERN­MENT ELEC­TIONS

Four­teen months af­ter be­ing elect­ed to of­fice, the Gov­ern­ment re­turned to the elec­torate on No­vem­ber 28 in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

The rul­ing par­ty had mount­ed the plat­form on the ba­sis of re­form of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. But that took sec­ond place to com­ments from the two lead­ers.

From the PNM camp, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley launched an at­tack on the prof­li­gate spend­ing of the for­mer gov­ern­ment.

The word 'roti" would be­come a house­hold one as the Prime Min­is­ter de­tailed the cost of ex­pen­di­ture on a Di­vali meal at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre un­der the for­mer gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing at a meet­ing in Co­coyea Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, Row­ley said: "I saw some records at the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence. You know every year at the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence we have a func­tion for Di­vali, for Eid, for Christ­mas, for Eman­ci­pa­tion. For one Di­vali func­tion they (the Peo­ples Part­ner­ship) paid $350,000 for roti."

He said the is­sue was not one of race be­cause every­body in Trinidad likes roti. Rather he said he had raised it to show how the for­mer gov­ern­ment wast­ed mon­ey.

He told a meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas: "At Di­vali, there is no meat and al­co­hol, and as you know, that is what costs mon­ey in a func­tion...for 900 peo­ple, be­cause that is how much all the in­voic­es show how many peo­ple were in­vit­ed, you spent a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars on the ac­tu­al food and $394,000 for the plate and the fork and the nap­kins?"

Row­ley gave a break­down of the cost of the Di­vali func­tion host­ed in Oc­to­ber 2014.

He said ac­count­ing showed that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion spent a to­tal of $1,677,719.79, in­clud­ing $487,400 on d�cor; $394,568.75 on cater­ing; $98,200 on en­ter­tain­ment; $128,752.50 on print­ing and pack­ag­ing; $69,750 for shut­tle and park­ing ser­vices; $454,116.54 for tents and in­fra­struc­ture; and $44,932 for ush­er­ing, am­bu­lance and clean­ing ser­vices.

But the bat­tle was to get much more per­son­al as Row­ley de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar as an em­bar­rass­ment, af­ter the UNC leader had tak­en is­sue with what she said were mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar con­tracts be­ing giv­en to wives of some PNM Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert threat­ened to sue Per­sad-Bisses­sar over her com­ments.

But at a UNC meet­ing in Freeport, Per­sad-Bisses­sar fired back at Row­ley, say­ing he was the em­bar­rass­ment. She said: "I don't think there is any greater em­bar­rass­ment for a per­son who have more chil­dren out­side than in­side," in ref­er­ence to Row­ley's two sons from pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ships, Garth Al­leyne, whom the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship made pub­lic in March 2015 and the oth­er, Christo­pher Barthol, who the pub­lic be­came aware of, via a fam­i­ly pho­to­graph is­sued by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter af­ter this year's Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions.

When cit­i­zens went to the polls on No­vem­ber 28, lit­tle at­ten­tion was paid to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form and by the time the re­sults were an­nounced it was clear that the pop­u­la­tion had lit­tle or no in­ter­est in the poll. The EBC said 34 per cent of the elec­torate vot­ed. The pop­u­lar vote went to the UNC.

The rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment went in­to the elec­tion hold­ing eight of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, while the UNC held six.

By the end of the elec­tion the PNM had lost one of the eight. The re­sult - 7 PNM, 6 UNC and one tied.

The cor­po­ra­tion of San­gre Grande proved to be a dif­fi­cult tie break­er. Both par­ties held four seats each and two al­der­men each.

Af­ter re­counts and checks, mem­bers of the coun­cil took the oath of of­fice on De­cem­ber 15, three weeks af­ter the elec­tion.

At the swear­ing in of the coun­cil the UNC walked out in­sist­ing that Ter­ry Ron­don had no au­thor­i­ty to sit in the chair­man's chair to con­duct the pro­ceed­ings. In the ab­sence of the par­ty which holds equal sway in the cor­po­ra­tion, Ron­don was of­fi­cial­ly elect­ed chair­man in the pres­ence of sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and of­fi­cials from the rul­ing PNM.

Even be­fore the coun­cil was sworn in, Ron­don as well as UNC of­fi­cials were called in­to ac­tion on the ground as heavy rains and winds pound­ed the com­mu­ni­ties of Matelot, Grand Ri­vere and To­co.

More than two dozen land­slips were record­ed and sig­nif­i­cant dam­age was done to homes, fish­ing boats and busi­ness places. Ron­don es­ti­mat­ed dam­age in the re­gion of two mil­lion dol­lars.

By year's end clean up in the com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ued.

The cam­paign saw the re­turn of for­mer Sports Min­is­ter An­til Roberts who had re­signed amidst al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in the Life­s­port pro­gramme. There were con­cerns among UNC MPs that Roberts' ap­pear­ance on a UNC plat­form in Diego Mar­tin sig­nalled his re-en­try in­to the Par­lia­ment. But by year's end, al­though she had pub­licly asked him if he would sit in the "peo­ple's house," the UNC leader had made no move to ap­point him a Sen­a­tor.

Back in the pol­i­tics though is for­mer min­is­ter of the peo­ple and so­cial de­vel­op­ment Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who had been dis­missed un­der a cloud af­ter al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al mis­con­duct. Ra­mad­hars­ingh was elect­ed Chair­man of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

5- THA ELEC­TION

To­ba­go is prepar­ing for To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 23.

The an­nounce­ment of the date came on De­cem­ber 16 in a brief an­nounce­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. Nom­i­na­tion day is Jan­u­ary 3.

The rul­ing PNM cur­rent­ly holds all 12 seats in the THA and is look­ing to main­tain that po­si­tion.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion says there are 48,942 elec­tors reg­is­tered to vote.

THA Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, who has held of­fice since 2001 and has served for four terms, has in­di­cat­ed he will not be con­test­ing the Jan­u­ary elec­tion.

At a re­cent busi­ness con­fer­ence, Lon­don was high­ly crit­i­cal of the na­tion­al car­ri­er­Caribbean Air­lines, say­ing To­ba­go needs "an air­line that is sen­si­tive and recog­nis­es that an in­vest­ment in To­ba­go at this point in time is go­ing to reap rich div­i­dends down the road."

He told the gath­er­ing, "I am say­ing that if I am liv­ing in To­ba­go and this is Trinidad and To­ba­go and this is my na­tion­al air­line, my busi­ness must take pri­or­i­ty."

And the long-an­tic­i­pat­ed To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Bill to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion to give self-gov­ern­ment to To­ba­go is still to be laid in the Par­lia­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had promised that the leg­is­la­tion would have been laid by De­cem­ber 16. The leg­is­la­tion was pre­pared af­ter dis­cus­sions were held by a team led by Lon­don and in­clud­ing for­mer chief sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles. It is ex­pect­ed to give the peo­ple of the is­land more au­ton­o­my.

The leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for the cre­ation of the new House so there will be the cham­ber made up of the elect­ed as­sem­bly­men and the Peo­ple's House, which will be ap­point­ed by the rul­ing par­ty in the THA.

For­mer head of the pub­lic ser­vice, Regi­nald Du­mas, said he was very con­cerned about that mat­ter, as the Peo­ple's House was to be ap­point­ed by the rul­ing par­ty in the THA.

PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke has in­di­cat­ed he will con­test the elec­tion un­der the ban­ner of his Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Duke will be run­ning for Rox­bor­ough/De­laford seat.

But the women's arm of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM is urg­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans, and in par­tic­u­lar women, to with­draw their sup­port for Duke, in light of al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al mis­con­duct against him.

Duke told the T&T Guardian peo­ple have wide­ly re­ject­ed the call be­cause of the nu­mer­ous prob­lems fac­ing To­ba­go. He point­ed to a re­cent call-in poll done on Street To­ba­go 91.9 FM, in which the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple sup­port­ed him.

Among the pri­or­i­ty is­sues which he has iden­ti­fied on the cam­paign are: hous­ing, land, prob­lems on the air and sea bridge and a prop­er port for To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to Duke, the par­ty has a 40-page "Man­date not Man­i­festo" which has as its theme Let's Build a Bet­ter To­ba­go, Child by Child, Fam­i­ly by Fam­i­ly, Vil­lage by Vil­lage.

The rul­ing PNM has al­ready se­lect­ed can­di­dates and ex­pects to kick off its cam­paign ear­ly in the New Year.