Richard Lord

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er says the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment does not have a pol­i­cy of eth­nic bal­ance.Warn­er said so in re­sponse to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, dur­ing yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion. The mo­tion, brought by Row­ley, called on the House to con­demn for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed, who said he would work with Par­lia­ment to ad­dress the eth­nic im­bal­ance in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice. Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment was lat­er re­voked by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards.

Row­ley quot­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion from a re­port on the re­view/re­struc­tur­ing of the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T, which said that at­tempts should be made in the new or­gan­i­sa­tion to im­ple­ment the process to achieve an eth­nic bal­ance in the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Warn­er lat­er told leg­is­la­tors in his con­tri­bu­tion that the par­tic­u­lar rec­om­men­da­tion was re­ject­ed out­right by the Cab­i­net. Row­ley al­so claimed that un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, all 11 mem­bers of the Es­tate Man­age­ment Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny were cit­i­zens of East In­di­an de­scent. He said that all the chair­men and deputy chair­men of all the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties in Trinidad were al­so East In­di­ans.

Warn­er said the PNM dis­crim­i­nat­ed against East In­di­ans through­out its ex­is­tence. Warn­er said Mo­hammed was wrong to have made the state­ment be­cause he had no con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty to deal with the mat­ter.

He said Mo­hammed was made to pay a price for his ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ment. Warn­er, how­ev­er, said the mo­tion was a com­plete waste of time, adding that if Row­ley want­ed to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points and claim vic­to­ry for hav­ing Mo­hammed re­moved, then he could do so.

Dur­ing the de­bate, which was very heat­ed at times, House Speak­er Wade Mark had to cau­tion Row­ley and oth­er MPs. Mark warned Row­ley against im­put­ing im­prop­er mo­tives against At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. Row­ley said he was told by staff at the T&T mis­sion in New York that when Ram­lo­gan vis­it­ed there, he ex­pressed con­cern about the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the staff there. Row­ley said his point was be­ing made to de­ter­mine it the Gov­ern­ment had a pol­i­cy of en­sur­ing there was eth­nic bal­ance in all as­pects of life in T&T. Af­ter be­ing cau­tioned by Mark, Row­ley moved on to an­oth­er point. Lat­er, Mark called on Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Dr Amery Browne to apol­o­gise for a com­ment he made while seat­ed.

Browne got up and apol­o­gised for ris­ing on a point of or­der. This did not sat­is­fy Mark, who lat­er said: "You not apol­o­gis­ing? You not apol­o­gis­ing?" The de­bate then con­tin­ued. Warn­er pro­duced doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence to in­di­cate that Ram­lo­gan, since as­sum­ing of­fice al­most one year ago, nev­er trav­elled to New York. Warn­er then called on Row­ley to apol­o­gise for his com­ments. Row­ley got up and spoke, but did not apol­o­gise. While seat­ed he said: "The staff lied then?" Sev­er­al gov­ern­ment MPs, in­clud­ing Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, re­peat­ed­ly called on Row­ley to apol­o­gise for mis­lead­ing the House. Warn­er hint­ed that there were oth­er mech­a­nisms avail­able to the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure he apol­o­gised.

He lat­er said af­ter last Fri­day's di­vid­ed vote by the Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment, the 55-year-old par­ty had three fac­tions. "The PNM is split in three ways-five with Diego Mar­tin West (Row­ley), five with San Fer­nan­do East (Patrick Man­ning) and two in the bath­room," he said, caus­ing MPs to burst in­to laugh­ter. Lat­er in the sit­ting, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Row­ley and Mark ex­tend­ed East­er greet­ings to the peo­ple of T&T. The House was then ad­journed to a date to be fixed.