Gail Alexan­der

PNM MP Kei­th Row­ley is al­leg­ing that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie told "un­truths" about him in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day and that oth­er PNM MPs al­so at­tempt­ed to por­tray him in "an un­favourable light" that day. Row­ley dis­missed the ac­cu­sa­tions against him by sev­er­al of his for­mer Cab­i­net col­leagues dur­ing the Low­er House de­bate on Gov­ern­ment's prop­er­ty tax. He had been crit­i­cal of the tax and Gov­ern­ment's modus operan­di when he made his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate last Fri­day night. When de­bate re­sumed on Mon­day, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Pe­ter Tay­lor, PNM House Leader Colm Im­bert, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal took Row­ley to task.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira, in wind­ing up the de­bate, al­so not­ed sev­er­al times that crit­i­cisms had been lev­elled against the bill, not on­ly by the Op­po­si­tion, "but by one of our own." Tesheira al­so said Row­ley, more than oth­er PNM MPs, should be ac­quaint­ed with Gov­ern­ment's track record, es­pe­cial­ly on hous­ing, since he had been Hous­ing Min­is­ter. Im­bert and Je­re­mie said Row­ley had at­tend­ed PNM's De­cem­ber 7 cau­cus, where Par­lia­men­tary mat­ters were planned and had not in­di­cat­ed he would op­pose the bill. They said he had giv­en as­sur­ances he would sup­port it. Je­re­mie said he was in "hor­ror" and "ap­palled" at what took place. Be­fore the de­bate Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had al­so told re­porters at a news con­fer­ence that Row­ley's re­sponse on the bill has been "emo­tive and de­signed to pro­mote an emo­tion­al re­sponse" and the Gov­ern­ment had in­tend­ed to "deal with that" lat­er in that day's de­bate.

Man­ning had stressed the PNM had rules, reg­u­la­tions and dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures and if those were trans­gressed, there al­so were rules to deal with that. How­ev­er, Row­ley ex­plained yes­ter­day he had made his po­si­tion clear when the PNM's cau­cus met. Row­ley said: "In the cau­cus where they se­lect­ed speak­ers on the bill, I was not a speak­er se­lect­ed, but I said I would be mak­ing an in­ter­ven­tion – that was clear." He said: "The Fi­nance Min­is­ter asked if I would be sup­port­ing the bill and I said I didn't know since I had not seen the bill and I couldn't say if I was sup­port­ing it as I hadn't seen it." Row­ley said when he came to the Par­lia­ment last Fri­day and spoke to PNM House Leader Im­bert about his speak­ing in de­bate, Im­bert of­fered him a "pack­age" from which to speak. He added: "I de­clined that of­fer of a pack­age be­cause for 23 years I've been speak­ing in Par­lia­ment with­out a pack­age and I didn't need it."

Row­ley al­leged that Je­re­mie was not truth­ful in his state­ments about him. He added: "He (Je­re­mie) knows noth­ing about any arrange­ment as I made no arrange­ment. But, all of this is yet an­oth­er at­tempt to por­tray me in an un­favourable light and it is con­sis­tent with their ob­jec­tive," Asked about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fac­ing PNM dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures or ex­pul­sion for his state­ments, Row­ley said: "I rest my con­cerns in the PNM's con­sti­tu­tion and its dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures as they are there for all of us and not for me alone. I hope we will all abide by it." "How­ev­er," Im­bert said, "Dr Row­ley was du­ty-bound to in­form PNM's cau­cus if he in­tend­ed to at­tack the Gov­ern­ment and op­pose PNM leg­is­la­tion. "Dr Row­ley per­son­al­ly told me that he was sup­port­ing the leg­is­la­tion."

PNM chair­man, Con­rad Enill, had not at­tend­ed the PNM's De­cem­ber 7 cau­cus on the bill since he was in Qatar. How­ev­er, Enill said if Row­ley in­deed was sound­ing more and more like the Op­po­si­tion MPs, as Im­bert and Parsan­lal claimed "then the par­ty will deal with it." As of now, Enill said , no com­plaint re­gard­ing Row­ley was be­fore the PNM. "But if there is suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest that Dr Row­ley was be­hav­ing in breach of the par­ty con­sti­tu­tion, it will be dealt with –the PNM is a par­ty of dis­ci­pline and we ex­pect our mem­bers to be bound­ed by the par­ty's rules," Enill added.