Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion MP for San Fer­nan­do East Bri­an Man­ning is call­ing on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) lead­er­ship to ad­dress what he de­scribes as gov­er­nance is­sues with­in the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.

The call comes af­ter Man­ning said a mes­sage he post­ed in a San Fer­nan­do East (SFE) group chat was delet­ed by con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is and he was sub­se­quent­ly re­moved from the group.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Man­ning said he had for­mal­ly raised con­cerns about Alex­is and was seek­ing greater trans­paren­cy and in­de­pen­dent over­sight with­in the con­stituen­cy.

Man­ning ref­er­enced a com­plaint he sub­mit­ted to the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil in June re­gard­ing con­cerns raised by mem­bers about an al­leged con­flict of in­ter­est in­volv­ing Alex­is and her re­port­ed re­ceipt of con­tracts while serv­ing as chair­man of a state agency dur­ing the PNM’s time in gov­ern­ment.

“Over the past sev­er­al months, in con­sul­ta­tion af­ter con­sul­ta­tion fol­low­ing last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, our mem­bers have raised with me a se­ries of trou­bling ques­tions about gov­er­nance with­in SFE’s con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive,” Man­ning said.

“I’ve brought these con­cerns for­mal­ly, and in writ­ing, to the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil. To date, they haven’t been ad­dressed in a way that as­sures mem­bers they’ll be ex­am­ined in­de­pen­dent­ly and fair­ly.”

At the cen­tre of the con­cerns, Man­ning said, is Alex­is’ si­mul­ta­ne­ous oc­cu­pan­cy of mul­ti­ple se­nior po­si­tions with­in the par­ty. He not­ed that she serves as the PNM’s as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary, San Fer­nan­do East’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, and a mem­ber of the par­ty’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive.

“Many mem­bers be­lieve these myr­i­ad roles com­pro­mise the im­par­tial­i­ty of de­ci­sion-mak­ing when­ev­er con­stituen­cy mat­ters are el­e­vat­ed to na­tion­al lev­el, and that SFE’s in­ter­ests may there­fore not be fair­ly rep­re­sent­ed,” he said.

Be­yond con­cerns about Alex­is’ mul­ti­ple po­si­tions, Man­ning said mem­bers had al­so ques­tioned the con­duct of a re­cent con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Man­ning, an unan­nounced va­can­cy was filled by an in­di­vid­ual un­fa­mil­iar to many long­stand­ing mem­bers and who was al­leged­ly con­nect­ed to Alex­is.

He al­so point­ed to me­dia re­ports re­gard­ing Alex­is and con­tracts award­ed through the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

“The me­dia has re­port­ed Ms Alex­is was able to ob­tain mil­lions of dol­lars in CEPEP con­tracts from the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry while be­ing an em­ploy­ee (chair­man) of the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny,” he al­leged.

Man­ning stressed that he was not ac­cus­ing Alex­is or any­one else of wrong­do­ing.

“Con­stituents would like to know the lead­er­ship’s view on this con­cern­ing mat­ter. I make no ac­cu­sa­tion of guilt against any in­di­vid­ual, in­clud­ing Ms Alex­is. These are se­ri­ous con­cerns, raised in good faith by loy­al mem­bers. What I’m re­quest­ing is trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and a process mem­bers can trust.”

Against that back­drop, Man­ning said he had re­quest­ed that the com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to ver­i­fy SFE par­ty groups in­clude at least one in­de­pen­dent mem­ber from out­side the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive to en­sure im­par­tial­i­ty.

“I of­fered Ms Alex­is the very same op­por­tu­ni­ty. The re­quest was de­clined. The Gen­er­al Coun­cil has in­stead in­sist­ed that my nom­i­nee be cho­sen on­ly from among Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, the body on which Ms Alex­is serves as a se­nior of­fi­cer.”

Man­ning said he was not con­vinced that the pro­posed arrange­ment would in­spire con­fi­dence among par­ty mem­bers.

“I can­not in good con­science ac­cept that this arrange­ment in­spires con­fi­dence. You can­not ask mem­bers to have faith in an in­quiry when those clos­est to the con­cerns sit in judg­ment of it. It re­flects a re­luc­tance to al­low these mat­ters to be ex­am­ined by a gen­uine­ly im­par­tial hand,” he said.

He called on the PNM lead­er­ship to pro­vide San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers with clar­i­ty and re­as­sur­ance with­out fur­ther de­lay.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Alex­is for com­ment on why Man­ning’s mes­sage was delet­ed, the al­le­ga­tions made against her, and whether he had been re­moved from the con­stituen­cy’s group chat. How­ev­er, no re­sponse was re­ceived up to press time.

Re­spond­ing to the mat­ter yes­ter­day, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the par­ty’s lead­er­ship had al­ready tak­en steps to ad­dress the con­cerns.

“The mat­ter re­gard­ing MP Bri­an Man­ning is be­ing man­aged by the lead­er­ship with the Gen­er­al Coun­cil’s sup­port. An in­ves­tiga­tive team was ap­proved with terms of ref­er­ence. They met both Mr Man­ning and Mrs Alex­is and their wit­ness­es and sub­mit­ted a com­pre­hen­sive re­port to the lead­er­ship and coun­cil with find­ings and fur­ther rec­om­men­da­tions. The lead­er­ship and coun­cil not­ed the find­ings and act­ed on the rec­om­men­da­tions,” Gon­za­les said.

He added that the mat­ter re­mains un­der con­sid­er­a­tion in ac­cor­dance with the par­ty’s rules and prin­ci­ples.

“The mat­ter con­tin­ues be­ing ad­dressed in ac­cor­dance with the par­ty’s tra­di­tions and con­sti­tu­tion. I’m con­fi­dent the par­ty has man­aged this mat­ter and con­tin­ues to do so in its best tra­di­tions and in ac­cor­dance with the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice, fair­ness and pro­ce­dur­al pro­pri­ety.

“The par­ty re­mains res­olute in work­ing with Mr Man­ning, Mrs Alex­is and the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy to re­solve the is­sues that ex­ist there.”
Guardian Me­dia al­so sought a re­sponse from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les but re­ceived no com­ment up to press time.