Derek Achong

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke has de­nied that there were gang mem­bers present in a meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing last week. Duke made the state­ment dur­ing a press con­fer­ence held yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at the PSA's Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain of­fices.

The con­tro­ver­sial PSA head, who was tight-lipped on the ex­act de­tails of the con­tro­ver­sial meet­ing, said: "None of the peo­ple we met with last week and on Wednes­day, as far as I am aware, are gang­sters. There were broth­ers, sis­ters, sons and daugh­ters of this coun­try...peo­ple who are deeply in­ter­est­ed in cre­at­ing a bet­ter so­ci­ety."

Duke said those who at­tend­ed the meet­ings were per­ceived to be crim­i­nals but were in fact cit­i­zens who want­ed pos­i­tive change in their com­mu­ni­ties. He ad­mit­ted to hav­ing held con­sul­ta­tions with res­i­dents of com­mu­ni­ties in Laven­tille and Mor­vant, with sev­er­al meet­ings tak­ing place in the past.

Duke said the dis­cus­sions were part of a PSA ini­tia­tive to help bring "so­cial co­he­sion in com­mu­ni­ties with so­cial un­rest." The move, Duke said, was part of his or­gan­i­sa­tion's so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to­wards its mem­bers who live in de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties. "Our mem­bers don't live in West­moor­ings, Fed­er­a­tion Park or Palmiste, they live in Laven­tille, Mor­vant and Mon Re­pos," Duke said.

A re­served Duke re­peat­ed­ly de­clined to com­ment on the pres­ence and con­tri­bu­tions made by Warn­er and Lee Sing dur­ing a meet­ing held at Lee Sing's Port-of-Spain City Hall of­fice on Au­gust 15. A sec­ond meet­ing was re­port­ed­ly held at the St Paul's Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

Warn­er lat­er con­firmed that al­though he did not at­tend the sec­ond meet­ing he sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, chair­man of the Of­fice of Law En­force­ment Pol­i­cy, Kei­th Re­naud. When asked about it yes­ter­day, Duke de­clined to re­veal the iden­ti­ties of those in at­ten­dance. "Mr Warn­er and Lee Sing are ca­pa­ble of speak­ing for them­selves. I am here to talk about PSA busi­ness," Duke said firm­ly.

He said he and PSA first vice-pres­i­dent Christo­pher Joe­field were at both meet­ings but de­nied fa­cil­i­tat­ing and or­gan­is­ing them. He al­so re­fused to say if he was in­vit­ed to the meet­ings or who had in­vit­ed him. How­ev­er, Duke re­vealed that the is­sues dis­cussed in both meet­ings were em­ploy­ment, food and the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day evening, leader of a group of dis­sent­ing PSA ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and shad­ow pres­i­dent Rosan­na Robin­son de­scribed Duke as a "dis­grace" who was bring­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion in­to dis­re­pute. "Who is he serv­ing with those meet­ings?" Robin­son ques­tioned. She said the as­so­ci­a­tion's pri­ma­ry role was to rep­re­sent its mem­bers, and not those who were un­em­ployed and seek­ing jobs. "In­stead of meet­ing with these gang and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, Duke should do his work as a PSA ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber and serve the PSA's mem­ber­ship," Robin­son said.

She claimed nu­mer­ous mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion were com­plain­ing about the lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion by Duke and were turn­ing to the dis­sent­ing group for ad­vice on in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sues. "We do not have an of­fice and our funds are lim­it­ed, so all we can give the mem­bers is ver­bal ad­vice," Robin­son said.