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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

IC closes investigation against Marlene

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2691 days ago
20180315
Marlene McDonald

Marlene McDonald

Roberto Codallo

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion re­cent­ly closed in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged com­plaint against PNM MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald af­ter the com­mis­sion did not find ev­i­dence to sup­port the claim, a se­nior source has con­firmed.

Cor­re­spon­dence on the mat­ter was is­sued by the com­mis­sion in ear­ly March, sources close to Mc­Don­ald said.

Mc­Don­ald was re­moved from Gov­ern­ment for al­most two years since March 2016, be­ing hired and fired twice. How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley on March l, again reap­point­ed her—this time as Min­is­ter in the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry.

Dur­ing the week of her ap­point­ment, there was in­for­ma­tion cir­cu­lat­ing that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion had con­clud­ed a fi­nal pend­ing mat­ter con­cern­ing her. How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed then, com­mis­sion of­fi­cials said they did not dis­cuss mat­ters pub­licly.

Sources, how­ev­er, con­firmed the com­mis­sion in a March 7 cor­re­spon­dence stat­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is now "closed".

It was con­firmed to the T&T Guardian that the com­mis­sion was un­able to find any ev­i­dence of val­ue to sup­port the al­le­ga­tion against her and there­fore closed the probe.

The al­le­ga­tion was made in 2014, re­port­ed­ly on the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion and oth­er is­sues. It was al­leged Mc­Don­ald breached the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Act (chp 22-01).

In the last two years, sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions were put to the com­mis­sion and po­lice con­cern­ing Mc­Don­ald, in­clud­ing on the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, hous­ing, and re­gard­ing em­ploy­ment at her Port-of-Spain South of­fice, con­cern­ing close rel­a­tive(s).

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion had ex­on­er­at­ed Mc­Don­ald in De­cem­ber 2013 on the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion is­sue. In March 2015 the com­mis­sion re­opened the probe, cit­ing re­ceipt of new in­for­ma­tion.

On Oc­to­ber 25, 2016, the com­mis­sion wrote Mc­Don­ald ex­on­er­at­ing her on cer­tain al­le­ga­tions. How­ev­er, she re­mained the sub­ject of a com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­ga­tion on an­oth­er mat­ter which was not stat­ed.

In Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Mc­Don­ald brushed off queries on the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's re­cent let­ter and did not re­ply yes­ter­day.

Cal­abar mat­ter dogged Mc­Don­ald

•The Cal­abar mat­ter par­tic­u­lar­ly dogged Mc­Don­ald since March 2016 when Row­ley re­moved her from the Cab­i­net pend­ing the probes by the com­mis­sion and po­lice on the as­sort­ed is­sues.

•Last June, af­ter Mc­Don­ald was cleared on most of the al­le­ga­tions, Row­ley ap­point­ed her Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter.

• The PM fired her three days lat­er af­ter com­mu­ni­ty leader Cedric "Burkie" Burke" was among guests at her swear­ing-in func­tion. Burke, one of her Sea Lots con­stituents, was not among of­fi­cial guests. Row­ley not­ed pub­lic talk about it and dis­tanced his Gov­ern­ment from it.

•Af­ter that, there had been one mat­ter be­fore the com­mis­sion plus the on­go­ing po­lice probe in­to the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion is­sue.

•Sub­se­quent to Mc­Don­ald's Ju­ly dis­missal, PNM sources said en­quiries were made last Au­gust to the com­mis­sion on the sta­tus of the "un­known" mat­ter.

Af­ter Row­ley ap­point­ed her in Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, he ducked a re­cent ques­tion in Par­lia­ment on whether Mc­Don­ald was cleared by the com­mis­sion and po­lice,.

Af­ter Mc­Don­ald was made a min­is­ter on March 1, T&T Po­lice Ser­vices' spokesman Ellen Lewis sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed the po­lice probe which be­gan in 2016 con­tin­ued. Yes­ter­day po­lice of­fi­cials said the mat­ter was "still on."

That probe was ini­ti­at­ed in March 2016 af­ter Fix­in' T&T's Kirk Wait­he re­quest­ed po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the es­tab­lish­ment and run­ning of the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, monies paid to it, and its op­er­a­tions.


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