Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has tak­en aim at Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ac­cus­ing her of pre­sid­ing over what he de­scribed as a “hate­ful, spite­ful and vin­dic­tive reign”, fol­low­ing her re­marks that Trinidad and To­ba­go has be­come a “law­less dump”.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Row­ley said the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments and re­cent pol­i­cy de­ci­sions re­flect a reck­less ap­proach to gov­er­nance and a dis­re­gard for the coun­try’s fu­ture.

“Clear­ly this is a prime min­is­ter who does not care about what she does to and about this coun­try,” Row­ley said, adding that her con­duct should sur­prise no one who has been close­ly ob­serv­ing her style of lead­er­ship.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment while de­fend­ing her Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­pose high­er fines on er­rant mo­torists and to in­crease Cus­toms tax­es and levies. She in­sist­ed the mea­sures are nec­es­sary to re­store or­der, ar­gu­ing that the coun­try has slipped in­to a state of dis­or­der that re­quires firm cor­rec­tive ac­tion.

How­ev­er, Row­ley re­ject­ed that ra­tio­nale, claim­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s own de­ci­sions have con­tributed to the cur­rent cli­mate.

“This com­ment should sur­prise no one here who has been ob­serv­ing and eval­u­at­ing her en­tire ap­proach to gov­ern­ment and gov­er­nance as she in­ter­acts with our in­ter­ests dis­mis­sive­ly both at home and abroad,” he said.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter went fur­ther, crit­i­cis­ing what he de­scribed as ques­tion­able ap­point­ments made un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“It is all there with the de­ci­sions she makes and the peo­ple of du­bi­ous and even crim­i­nal qual­i­ty that she ap­points,” Row­ley stat­ed.

He al­so ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of gov­ern­ing with­out re­gard for long-term con­se­quences, sug­gest­ing she has lit­tle con­cern for ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“She ac­knowl­edges that she rules at the end of her days, so to hell with you all and your fu­ture. That is her mantra as she car­ries on with her hate­ful and spite­ful, vin­dic­tive reign,” Row­ley said.

Ac­cord­ing to Row­ley, the Prime Min­is­ter is em­bold­ened by her re­cent elec­toral vic­to­ry and unchecked au­thor­i­ty.

“She has got what she want­ed—a big elec­tion vic­to­ry, pow­er with­out con­straint and free ac­cess to the be­lea­guered Trea­sury. She does not ex­pect to be there to ac­count in five years’ time, so in the mean­time it is reck­less­ness, in­sults and dev­il take the hind­most,” he added.

Row­ley warned that the con­se­quences of the cur­rent ap­proach will not be even­ly shared.

“Some­body is los­ing in this era. I just won­der ex­act­ly who the losers are,” he said.