Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pub­lic ex­changes of al­le­ga­tions and counter-al­le­ga­tions will not re­solve the is­sues fac­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, Op­po­si­tion chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has warned.

"They risk prej­u­dic­ing the process, dam­ag­ing in­di­vid­ual rep­u­ta­tions and un­der­min­ing the very in­sti­tu­tions up­on which all mem­bers must ul­ti­mate­ly re­ly," Gon­za­les said in a state­ment yes­ter­day ad­dress­ing the dis­pute in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning and con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

Man­ning, mean­while, said the is­sue was be­ing wrong­ly por­trayed as a per­son­al dis­pute be­tween him­self and Alex­is. He al­so de­nied spec­u­la­tion that he was act­ing as a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) agent or in­tend­ed to leave the PNM.

In June, Man­ning wrote to the par­ty's lead­er­ship about con­cerns raised by San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers re­gard­ing Alex­is, in­clud­ing a pos­si­ble con­flict of in­ter­est aris­ing from the mul­ti­ple po­si­tions she holds, as well as al­leged CEPEP con­tract awards dur­ing the PNM's tenure. The par­ty al­so re­ceived a writ­ten com­plaint from Alex­is.

An in­quiry team was sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the is­sues.

On Tues­day, Man­ning is­sued a state­ment in­form­ing con­stituents that he had tak­en the con­cerns be­fore the gen­er­al coun­cil but, to date, they had not been ad­dressed in a man­ner that as­sured an in­de­pen­dent and fair ex­am­i­na­tion.

When Man­ning post­ed the state­ment in the San Fer­nan­do East group chat, it was delet­ed. A no­tice in­di­cat­ed it had been "delet­ed by ad­min Pa­tri­cia Alex­is" and that "Pa­tri­cia Alex­is re­moved Bri­an Man­ning."

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing of the PNM lead­er­ship on Tues­day, Gon­za­les said the par­ty had not­ed Man­ning's pub­lic state­ment and con­firmed that, af­ter re­ceiv­ing cor­re­spon­dence from both Man­ning and Alex­is last month, the gen­er­al coun­cil ap­point­ed an in­quiry team to ex­am­ine the is­sues raised.

"That team met Man­ning and Alex­is, re­ceived rep­re­sen­ta­tions from them and their re­spec­tive wit­ness­es, and sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit­ted a com­pre­hen­sive re­port con­tain­ing find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions," Gon­za­les said.

"That re­port was con­sid­ered by the lead­er­ship, cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive and the gen­er­al coun­cil. Ac­tions are be­ing tak­en on its rec­om­men­da­tions and the process of ad­dress­ing the is­sues with­in San Fer­nan­do East con­tin­ues."

Gon­za­les not­ed that the PNM is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion and that, through­out its 70-year his­to­ry, dif­fer­ences have oc­ca­sion­al­ly emerged be­tween par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives and con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tives, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing con­stituen­cy elec­tion pe­ri­ods.

"As al­ways, it be­hoves mem­bers to re­spect the par­ty's con­sti­tu­tion and to avoid pub­lic ven­ti­la­tion of mat­ters that are prop­er­ly be­fore the gen­er­al coun­cil," he said.

Gon­za­les said the PNM's strength has al­ways rest­ed on re­spect for the par­ty's struc­tures and process­es, which al­low all par­ties to be heard and en­sure the in­sti­tu­tion re­mains stronger than any in­di­vid­ual dis­agree­ment.

"The par­ty will al­ways seek to ad­dress those mat­ters ad­her­ing to the prin­ci­ples of due process, nat­ur­al jus­tice, fair­ness and pro­ce­dur­al pro­pri­ety," he said, adding that the lead­er­ship would con­tin­ue work­ing with Man­ning, Alex­is and San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers to­ward a res­o­lu­tion.

"The par­ty will not be drawn in­to pub­licly ad­ju­di­cat­ing al­le­ga­tions con­cern­ing in­di­vid­ual mem­bers while that work con­tin­ues."

He added: "There will be dis­agree­ments and strong­ly held views, but we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­solve those dif­fer­ences with fair­ness, dis­ci­pline and re­spect for each oth­er and for the par­ty we're priv­i­leged to serve."

PNM's My Home - Man­ning

Re­ject­ing spec­u­la­tion that he was a UNC agent, Man­ning said: "I haven't been of­fered any­thing by the UNC. I'd nev­er join them. The PNM's my home.

"This mat­ter is be­ing mis­con­strued as an is­sue be­tween my­self and Ms Alex­is. It isn't. Mem­bers in­di­cat­ed con­cerns to me about var­i­ous is­sues con­cern­ing cer­tain el­e­ments of the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, many of which in­volve the chair­man. It's my job as MP to re­port such mat­ters to the PNM ex­ec­u­tive. I've done just that.

"The con­stituen­cy is cry­ing out for a chair­man they can trust. Jus­tice, in­tegri­ty and good sense should pre­vail in this."

Alex­is did not re­spond to Gon­za­les' state­ment.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue, de­vel­op­ment diplo­mat and strate­gic con­sul­tant Pearce Robin­son said Gon­za­les' state­ment be­gan by em­pha­sis­ing due process but ap­plied the prin­ci­ple se­lec­tive­ly.

"It lec­tures Man­ning while fail­ing to call on Alex­is and the San Fer­nan­do East ex­ec­u­tive not to take uni­lat­er­al ac­tion, to op­er­ate with­in the par­ty's con­sti­tu­tion and process­es, and to re­spect the very due process the state­ment in­vokes. You can­not de­mand dis­ci­pline from one side while avoid­ing the con­duct of the oth­er," Robin­son said.

He ar­gued that if the PNM wished to be viewed as a mod­ern na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion, the con­cerns raised by Man­ning could not be dis­missed as mere­ly an in­ter­nal par­ty mat­ter.

"These are mat­ters of con­cern for all of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He didn't make ac­cu­sa­tions; he asked le­git­i­mate ques­tions touch­ing pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion, pub­lic con­tracts, pub­lic mon­ey and the con­duct of a con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive," Robin­son said.

"A se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ty should be able to dis­tin­guish be­tween in­ter­nal dis­ci­pline and le­git­i­mate pub­lic scruti­ny, an­swer ques­tions and ap­ply due process even­ly. If the PNM wants Trinidad and To­ba­go to trust it with gov­ern­ment, it must first demon­strate it can han­dle scruti­ny prop­er­ly with­in its own or­gan­i­sa­tion."