Renu­ka Singh

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald is un­der at­tack by a se­cret group named TnT Whistle­blow­er. The group, claim­ing to be sup­port­ive of the PNM, has e-mailed par­ty leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, threat­en­ing to go pub­lic with a se­ries of al­le­ga­tions against Mc­Don­ald.The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that this mat­ter was al­ready raised at the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. The Sun­day Guardian was al­so in­formed that the mat­ter had been re-opened and was cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The list of al­le­ga­tions e-mailed to Row­ley in­cludes her in­volve­ment in a "fake NGO (non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion)" called Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, which the group claimed is head­ed by Mc­Don­ald's com­mon-law hus­band, his broth­er and a col­league at the Diego Mar­tin Cred­it Union.

Checks with the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry show that the name search for the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion was done on Ju­ly 14, 2010, and it was reg­is­tered on Au­gust 24, 2010, list­ing Michael Carew, Lennox Carew and Vic­tor McEachrane. The reg­is­tered of­fice for Cal­abar Foun­da­tion is the same as Michael Carew's list­ed ad­dress on the doc­u­ments.The list of al­le­ga­tions is sup­port­ed by copies of reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments, an ex­cerpt of the Hansard and pho­to­copies of cheques.

In the let­ter to Row­ley, the group al­so de­tails that a $375,000 cheque was pre­pared on May 12, 2012, for Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, but on the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments the date May 12, 2012, was scratched off and 2010 was scrib­bled in.De­spite the slop­py na­ture of the work, the cheque de­tails were al­so sent to Row­ley as part of the mount­ing ev­i­dence against Mc­Don­ald.This let­ter comes af­ter Mc­Don­ald was open­ly chal­lenged for the Port-of-Spain East con­stituen­cy can­di­da­cy.

In the Hansard dat­ed Oc­to­ber 18, 2011, dur­ing the Ap­pro­r­i­a­tion to the Bud­get de­bate, Mc­Don­ald named McEachrane as part of the re­formed Fi­nan­cial As­sis­tance Pro­gramme. In the Hansard text, Mc­Don­ald is not­ed as say­ing that that schol­ar­ship pro­gramme was tem­porar­i­ly closed un­til late Jan­u­ary 2008."As min­is­ter, I closed that pro­gramme. The rea­son I closed it is be­cause I need­ed to get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what the pro­gramme ac­tu­al­ly in­volves," Mc­Don­ald said on par­lia­men­tary record then.

"It al­so gave me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put in place a struc­ture to deal with the par­tic­u­lar pro­gramme. In­deed, a com­mit­tee was formed," she added.Mc­Don­ald went on to name the mem­bers of that re­struc­tured com­mit­tee, which in­clud­ed McEachrane and five oth­ers.The crux of the let­ter, though, seems to be the ac­cu­sa­tions of mis­con­duct lev­elled against Mc­Don­ald by mem­bers of the PNM, as this group claims that the par­ty has "not act­ed" on var­i­ous com­plaints against her over the past four years.

"Dr Row­ley, it is our opin­ion that Mar­lene Mc Don­ald has been able to be pro­mot­ed us­ing de­ceit­ful­ness and sub­terfuge for over 4 years. Do not al­low this up­com­ing fi­as­co to de­stroy the par­ty's chances at re­gain­ing Gov­ern­ment," the let­ter stat­ed.It al­so not­ed that it would not send any in­for­ma­tion to the mem­bers of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, as "they may in fact ad­mire the cor­rup­tion schemes we are try­ing to stamp out of the PNM."

The Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford yes­ter­day who said he was un­aware of the let­ter to Row­ley. He promised to look in­to the mat­ter.Sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact both Mc­Don­ald and Row­ley were un­suc­cess­ful as Mc­Don­ald's mo­bile phone re­mained switched off and nei­ther she nor Row­ley re­spond­ed to texts.