The memo­r­i­al stat­ue of na­tion­al hero Cap­tain Arthur Cipri­ani which had been con­cealed be­hind Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions, is be­ing “un­clothed”

And Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has dis­tanced him­self from the Port- of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tion which had “clothed” the stat­ue

Row­ley in­di­cat­ed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day when asked by UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh why the stat­ue had been con­cealed be­hind an or­na­men­tal struc­ture.

This was part of Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions in down­town Port-of-Spain..

Row­ley said he ‘d al­so asked him­self the same ques­tion.

But he said the mat­ter wasn’t han­dled by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) but by the Port- of- Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and Ude­cott.“And I think I’ve seen where Cap­tain Cipri­ani is be­ing ‘un­clothed’,” Row­ley quipped on the re­turn to nor­mal view of the stat­ue.”

In­dars­ingh said since Ude­cott falls un­der the OPM, if Row­ley’s of­fice and Ude­cottt would apol­o­gise to the labour move­ment .

Row­ley said, “There is a great dis­tinc­tion be­tween the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion. What went on is a de­ci­sion of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and if there is to be any apol­o­gy if that’s my col­league is look­ing for, I’d ask you to ask the May­or of Port-of-Spain about it. I as­sume no re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for them.”

In­dars­ingh asked if Row­ley was dis­tanc­ing him­self from Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

“I’m dis­tanc­ing my­self from the au­thor­i­ty of the May­or of Port-of-Spain with re­spect to Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions,” Row­ley replied.

On the sale of the Guaracara re­fin­ery, Row­ley said the on go­ing Re­quest for Pro­pos­als for the re­fin­ery has been nar­rowed down four in­ter­est­ed par­ties, they have al­ready ac­cessed the re­fin­ery’s da­ta room and some have al­ready vis­it­ed the re­fin­ery.

All four are to sub­mit their pro­pos­als by to­mor­row to be fol­lowed by eval­u­a­tion and mat­ters will con­tin­ue to progress. Row­ley said the re­fin­ery’s own­er has tak­en steps to pre­serve its equip­ment.

On se­cu­ri­ty of tenure of pub­lic health nurs­es, Row­ley said the vast ma­jor­i­ty of them have se­cu­ri­ty of tenure which is not an is­sue. But to the ex­tent there are those who have that is­sue, the mat­ter is be­ing ad­dressed by Fi­nance and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO).

The is­sue still out­stand­ing is the size of pen­sion li­a­bil­i­ty once they be­come per­ma­nent and the mat­ter is be­ing re­solved in the ap­pro­pri­ate quar­ter .

He said he didn’t agree with a re­port on hu­man cap­i­tal brain drain in T&T which UNC MP Rod­ney Charles cit­ed.

Row­ley al­so said the re­port of the two for­mer se­cu­ri­ty heads– who in­ves­ti­gat­ed Firearms Users’ li­cense is­sues– forms among oth­ers, part of an ex­er­cise in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty cur­rent­ly un­der­way.

“This will move to con­clu­sion at the ap­pro­pri­ate time,” he said.

Row­ley al­so said the mat­ter is still un­der­way re­gard­ing pay­ment for va­ca­tion or resid­ual as­pects of the 19 con­tract of­fi­cers for­mer­ly with the Po­lice Ser­vice

He said he was hap­py the UNC was in­ter­est­ed in dis­missed of­fi­cers since 20 high­ly trained peo­ple in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty were dis­missed un­der the PP gov­ern­ment’s tenure.” He added: “Yet you com­ing here to ask about 19 peo­ple…?!”

He al­so said he knew of no rep­utable source of in­for­ma­tion that T&T’s food im­port bill was 40 per cent as UNC claimed.

De­tail­ing Gov­ern­ment’s mea­sures to fur­ther agri­cul­ture, Row­ley said as a reg­is­tered farmer since 1976 he’s al­so been mak­ing his own per­son­al con­tri­bu­tion to food sup­ply.