Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day al­leged that a con­trac­tor was ex­tort­ed some $2 mil­lion by a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. Though Row­ley did not give names, he said his Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan in­formed him of the is­sue and he di­rect­ed Sinanan to tell the po­lice.

He said the con­trac­tor told them if he told the po­lice, he would not get any con­tracts again. The mat­ter seem­ing­ly died at that time.

He said a clause in the con­tract pro­tect­ed the con­trac­tor.

“We are of the PNM and we have the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple of T&T,” he said. “They have the gall to come here and every time they take a drink it goes to their head.”

Row­ley said Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was “crazy” be­cause she came to San­gre Grande to say Sinanan was in­volved in cor­rup­tion to sell his land to the State for the Curepe In­ter­change.

“If the State takes your land, the State has to pay you,” he said.

He said there would be ret­ri­bu­tion for some UNC mem­bers.

He al­so blast­ed the UNC for not sup­port­ing the new gun leg­is­la­tion which pro­pos­es to jail peo­ple with­out bail for 120 days for pos­ses­sion of high-pow­ered weapons, bombs or grenades.

Row­ley al­so promised lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form where each con­stituen­cy man­aged its own re­sources.

Speak­ing at the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cam­paign meet­ing in San­gre Grande, Row­ley re­capped all the work that the Gov­ern­ment was do­ing on the East-West Cor­ri­dor, in­clud­ing the new hos­pi­tal, road works and the promised port for To­co.

He said the UNC had lost elec­tions some nine times.

“Ten times come Mon­day,” he de­clared.