Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Baf­fled by the Prime Min­is­ter’s as­ser­tion that Op­po­si­tion mem­bers were the “se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials” named in the 2022 US Traf­fick­ing in Peo­ple re­port in­volved in the il­lic­it trade, Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal is call­ing on Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion on any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the claims.

But even as he made the call, his for­mer col­league, De­vant Ma­haraj, dou­bled down on his claim that the UNC not on­ly knew of the al­le­ga­tion but had launched an in­ter­na­tion­al probe in­to it, which Mooni­lal was, in fact, part of.

Mooni­lal’s call came dur­ing an Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, where he said he was con­fi­dent no such in­quest ex­ist­ed.

“To­day, I call on Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to in­di­cate to the coun­try whether there is any on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion that in­volves Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment—whether in Gov­ern­ment or Op­po­si­tion, any­one—deal­ing in hu­man traf­fick­ing. Is there any on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to get a com­ment from the Com­mis­sion­er on Dr Mooni­lal’s call.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials al­leged to be in­volved in the il­lic­it trade in 2020 were mem­bers of the UNC.

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal joined leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in dis­miss­ing this claim yes­ter­day.

“The Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment nor­mal­ly writes in Eng­lish. They speak Eng­lish, they write Eng­lish. This is not a case where a re­port is trans­lat­ed from French to Eng­lish, Span­ish to Eng­lish, Dutch, Ger­man to Eng­lish, Hin­di to Eng­lish. This is a case where the re­port is in Eng­lish,” he said.

“It says se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials al­leged in 2020. Hear what, Row­ley now comes to say it is not se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, it’s re­al­ly se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials of the UNC in 2011-12, some­where around there, but it’s on­ly in 2020 it’s al­leged. In the sev­en years (sic) be­tween (20)12 and (20)20, no­body al­leged. Is on­ly now.”

Even if Dr Row­ley’s al­le­ga­tions were true, Mooni­lal asked why the mat­ter was not sent to the po­lice.

How­ev­er, for­mer UNC-led Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter Ma­haraj gave cre­dence to the Prime Min­is­ter’s as­ser­tion on Sat­ur­day, say­ing he as­sist­ed in an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­tween 2010 and 2015 which con­firmed par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­u­als who now hold high of­fice in the par­ty, pro­vid­ed a reg­u­lar sup­ply of Venezue­lan and Colom­bian pros­ti­tutes to per­sons with­in and with­out the par­ty on a reg­u­lar ba­sis.

Mooni­lal dis­missed his for­mer col­league’s state­ments yes­ter­day, say­ing he was un­aware of any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I am not aware of any in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It cer­tain­ly was not any in­ves­ti­ga­tion of any cab­i­net or any cab­i­net busi­ness. I am not sure if for­mer min­is­ter Ma­haraj may have con­duct­ed his own in­quiry in­to any mat­ter. If he did, then sure­ly the min­istry would have a re­port and that re­port could be found and if there’s any claim of wrong­do­ing or crim­i­nal con­duct, then such a re­port ought to go to the po­lice,” he said.

“To my knowl­edge, when we look, there was some in­quiry in 2011, 2012, I be­lieve. I can­not ac­cuse Mr Ma­haraj of sup­press­ing in­for­ma­tion or knowl­edge of crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing and wait­ing un­til Dr Row­ley made such an abom­inable al­le­ga­tion in Par­lia­ment Fri­day last to come out and con­firm that. But cer­tain­ly, if it was any crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing, it ought to have been passed on to the po­lice.”

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj yes­ter­day called Mooni­lal’s state­ments iron­ic, giv­en what he said was the lev­el of in­volve­ment he (Mooni­lal) had in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“It is in­deed iron­ic that Dr Mooni­lal made this as­ser­tion, as it was the very same Dr Roodal Mooni­lal who was charged to in­ves­ti­gate the in­di­vid­ual in ques­tion for ONE of the TWO probes,” he said.

“Can Dr Mooni­lal in­di­cate if it is true or not if he was com­mis­sioned at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Ari­ma, by the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate to per­form the in­ves­ti­ga­tion? This was not a cab­i­net or min­istry-com­mis­sioned in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but rather a di­rec­tive by the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the UNC to in­ves­ti­gate what was be­ing ru­moured as crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty by a UNC ap­pointee.

“To sug­gest oth­er­wise, by ask­ing for a re­port et cetera, is play­ing smart with fool­ish­ness while pro­tect­ing the vilest of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties with hu­man traf­fick­ing. I am dis­ap­point­ed in and ex­pect­ed more of Dr Mooni­lal.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Ma­haraj if he had doc­u­ments to sup­port his var­i­ous claims.

How­ev­er, he said: “These types of things, they don’t want to doc­u­ment.”

Re­spond­ing to these new claims by Ma­haraj, Mooni­lal said: “I have not a clue about Lar­ry Gomes or Shel­don Gomes Sta­di­um. I nev­er “per­formed” any in­ves­ti­ga­tion, nor have I ever been asked to so do. I re­call a mat­ter at the PTSC in the press, where for­mer min­is­ter Ma­haraj un­der­took to in­quire. This was in the press at the time.

“As I said to­day, the is­sue is hu­man traf­fick­ing and the fail­ure of the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion to ad­dress same as out­lined in the US re­port. Any oth­er mat­ter is for the po­lice.”

Mean­while, Ch­agua­nas West MP, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied au­thor­ing a let­ter to Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar seek­ing an­swers on the al­le­ga­tions which be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia. The let­ter, which sur­faced on­line on Sat­ur­day and was un­der a Par­lia­ment let­ter­head, al­so cast al­le­ga­tions of an­oth­er UNC MP “us­ing the Fe­lic­i­ty area to ex­pand his traf­fick­ing busi­ness.”

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Ram­bal­ly la­belled the let­ter a fake and said he was not its au­thor.