Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to dis­close who told him that fired min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald was go­ing to be charged and on whose phone he re­ceived that in­for­ma­tion.

He made the call while speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) pave­ment re­port at the St Julien Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School in New Grant on Fri­day night, where an­oth­er Op­po­si­tion MP al­so called on the po­lice to re­open the Lan­date in­ves­ti­ga­tion against Row­ley.

Com­ment­ing on the post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing on Thurs­day, Mooni­lal said Row­ley made two very alarm­ing state­ments. The Prime Min­is­ter, he said, stat­ed,”’I did not know about what hap­pen­ing to Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, 10.30 on Sun­day night I got of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion and I got it from some­body else phone.’

“What are you say­ing Kei­th Row­ley? The tax­pay­er pays for the phone of a prime min­is­ter. As a Prime Min­is­ter, who phone you us­ing at 10.30 in the night? Who phone is that that you are get­ting of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion on some­body else phone and who giv­ing you of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion.”

Mooni­lal, who is a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil which Row­ley chairs, im­plied that the in­for­ma­tion came from the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is not for any­body to come and tell you who be­ing ar­rest­ed, who be­ing charged, when they be­ing charged, what are the charges. That is not the pur­pose of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. So when Row­ley says that at 10.30 on a Sun­day night some­body tell him that Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald is to be charged he is out of place and he has com­pro­mised the DPP, the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the po­lice.

“Tonight, I call on Kei­th Row­ley to tell us who told you Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald is to be charged. That is not your busi­ness, whether she charge or not, that is not your busi­ness. And who phone you was us­ing?”

Since Row­ley re­ceived the in­for­ma­tion via What’sApp on some­one else’s phone, he said that sug­gest­ed he was us­ing a par­al­lel phone to con­duct the busi­ness of the coun­try.

“Why are you do­ing that? What you have to hide...?” asked the Oropouche East MP.

Mc­Don­ald has been grant­ed $2 mil­lion bail on sev­en charges stem­ming from al­le­ga­tions that she al­leged­ly mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed state funds for her per­son­al gain.

Al­so charged are Mc­Don­ald’s com­mon-law hus­band Michael Carew, Wayne An­tho­ny, Vic­tor McEachrane and Edgar Zephyrine, the for­mer chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mi­sion for Self Help.

In light of the crim­i­nal charges against Mc­Don­ald af­ter she was cleared by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath al­so called for the re­open­ing of the Lan­date in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which in­volved Row­ley.

“Just like how the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion said Mar­lene had no case to an­swer, they al­so let Kei­th Row­ley off the hook a few years ago. Tonight, based on the prece­dent set where we have found the rul­ings of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion have been at odds with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, I be­lieve that war­rants the re­open­ing of the Lan­date mat­ter,” he said.

“The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress tonight calls for the re­open­ing of the Lan­date mat­ter with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

He claimed Row­ley got off on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty and not based on the ev­i­dence.

“You know what it was based on. They felt that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, the process that was used was the in­cor­rect process.”

While a min­is­ter in the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, Row­ley was ac­cused of al­leged­ly re­mov­ing ma­te­ri­als from the con­struc­tion site of the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal to a pri­vate re­al es­tate de­vel­op­ment—Lan­date—owned by his wife. The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­gat­ed and sent the file to the DPP. How­ev­er, Row­ley chal­lenged the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion in the High Court and re­ceived a stay on the grounds that he was not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions.