?PNM backbencher Keith Rowley will be present in Parliament for the UNC's upcoming no confidence motion against Prime Minister Patrick Manning.
Rowley confirmed his attendance when asked yesterday about it. He said: "I'm always in Parliament." Rowley said he recalled that his PNM colleagues had defended the last no confidence motion against Manning in 2008. But he noted on this occasion: "They knew who they were defending then, but did they know what they were defending? "This all started with that Finance and General Purposes meeting in April 2008 when I as former Minister for Udecott tried to recruit the Prime Minister's support in reining in Calder Hart and because of that I was removed. "I had an opportunity to alert my new Cabinet colleagues to what Udecott was exposing us and T&T to and I was aware the climate for corruption was being created yet I was fired."
Rowley said there were 15 ministers in the April F&GP meeting and he had told them that if the PNM had opposed corruption in the UNC Government then it was doubly wrong to allow it now. Rowley claimed Works Minister Colm Imbert was one of four ministers who Manning said he had spoken to, in investigating Rowley's statements in the meeting. Manning, in dismissing Rowley, had said several ministers had complained of "hooligan" and "wajang " behaviour by Rowley in the meeting. Yesterday, Rowley alleged that the reason he knew Imbert was one of the Ministers Manning spoke to, was because his wife had asked Imbert–in Rowley's presence–what Rowley had said in the meeting.
Rowley added: "So in alerting my colleagues I was made a victim of vitriol from the Prime Minister and today my party is in disgrace over that." He said Imbert had filed evidence with the Uff Commission of Inquiry into Udecott last Friday on the last working day of the commission. "They thought I would not have responded but the commission contacted my lawyer and gave me time to respond...they will not get away with that kind of behaviour," Rowley added.