Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Of­fi­cials of Howard Uni­ver­si­ty are not re­spond­ing to crit­i­cisms of the de­ci­sion to award Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an Ho­n­ourary Doc­tor­ate.

At­tempts to get com­ments from Howard's T&T born pres­i­dent Dr Wayne A. I. Fred­er­ick have so far been fu­tile. Calls to his Wash­ing­ton DC of­fice have nor been an­swered.

A re­quest for an in­ter­view to ex­plain the ra­tio­nale for Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley's se­lec­tion and the cri­te­ria used was emailed to the uni­ver­si­ty. In re­sponse, Misha Cor­nelius, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Re­la­tions at the Of­fice of Uni­ver­si­ty Com­mu­ni­ca­tions said: "I re­ceived the me­dia in­quiry be­low. Pres­i­dent Fred­er­ick is not avail­able for com­ment on this."

Dr Row­ley was pre­sent­ed with an Ho­n­ourary Doc­tor­ate De­gree of Let­ters on Sat­ur­day along­side Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and oth­er hon­orees. In con­fer­ring the de­gree Fred­er­ick, who was re­ceived this coun­try's high­est award, the ORTT, in 2020, list­ed im­prove­ment to roads, in­creas­ing eco­nom­ic growth and ed­u­ca­tion fund­ing and school re­pairs, among oth­er things.

Fred­er­ick al­so er­ro­neous­ly stat­ed that Row­ley was the coun­try's first Prime Min­is­ter from To­ba­go. How­ev­er, the late ANR Robin­son achieved that dis­tinc­tion in 1986.

This has the source of con­tention, par­tic­u­lar­ly in po­lit­i­cal cir­cles. On Sun­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor David Nakhid said he be­lieves Fred­er­ick, with whom he at­tend­ed St Mary's Col­lege, he was "off the mark." He added that said if the words ut­tered by Fred­er­ick in pre­sent­ing the de­gree to Dr Row­ley were his own cre­ation, con­se­quences must fol­low.

"If he thinks that Kei­th Row­ley has done a fan­tas­tic job, if he wrote that script him­self, then he should apol­o­gise to the na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He should give back the award that Row­ley be­stowed on him, Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and then take back that doc­tor­ate from Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley who not on­ly doesn't de­serve a doc­tor­ate but, in my opin­ion, based on his be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, should be fac­ing charges for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice," he said.

Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath de­scribed the con­fer­ral of the hon­orary de­gree as an at­tempt to prop up a "failed leader" with lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions ap­proach­ing.

The move was al­so crit­i­cised by mem­bers of the pub­lic.