Richard Lord

In­cum­bent Diego Mar­tin West MP, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, is ex­pect­ed to be the on­ly nom­i­nee to ap­pear be­fore the screen­ing com­mit­tee of the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), when it meets at Bal­isi­er House this af­ter­noon.

Row­ley was nom­i­nat­ed by all par­ty groups in his con­stituen­cy. He said yes­ter­day he was con­fi­dent of a fair screen­ing. He said he was fired as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter in April, 2008, af­ter he de­mand­ed Cab­i­net over­sight of state-owned spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny–Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), which was man­ag­ing Gov­ern­ment's mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar con­struc­tion projects.

But his claim was dis­put­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who said Row­ley was fired be­cause of his "wa­jang be­hav­iour" dur­ing a meet­ing of a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee. Row­ley has been very crit­i­cal of Man­ning's han­dling of the so-called Ude­cott mat­ter. He went so far as to claim that the up­com­ing 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion was to be the "Ude­cott elec­tions." Row­ley said re­cent­ly he was pre­pared to work with Man­ning in a fu­ture PNM gov­ern­ment, and was hop­ing that the PNM would be re­turned to pow­er.