Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) Michael An­nisette has ac­cused for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of us­ing the al­leged ex­ploita­tion of women by po­lit­i­cal fig­ures as part of a po­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tive while call­ing for a high­er stan­dard of ac­count­abil­i­ty and rep­re­sen­ta­tion from elect­ed of­fi­cials.

An­nisette made the re­marks in a me­dia state­ment on Wednes­day, where he re­spond­ed to re­marks made from Row­ley's Face­book page which was part of a com­ment be­neath the post of for­mer min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne on May 7.

Browne's post in­clud­ed a pho­to of new­ly ap­point­ed Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, with the cap­tion "They tried to rig the game, but you can't fake au­then­tic­i­ty," which has led some com­menters to in­ter­pret the post as a jab at the PNM's for­mer leader Row­ley.

Row­ley in turn com­ment­ed on the post, where he de­fend­ed his ac­tions as the par­ty's leader not­ing that he act­ed ap­pro­pri­ate­ly with the "best in­ter­est of the coun­try and the par­ty," in mind.

In his com­ment, Row­ley al­so re­ferred to oth­er in­stances where Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) act­ed in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly while oc­cu­py­ing pub­lic of­fice.

"I'm sure you would have heard of MPs who did every­thing ex­cept en­rich then­selves and dis­re­gard ser­vice and con­nec­tion to their con­stituents.

"I'm sure the au­then­tic­i­ty of many wit­ness­es and al­le­ga­tions about MPs and friends ex­ploit­ing young vul­ner­a­ble fe­males in and out of their of­fice."

While the orig­i­nal post by Browne was delet­ed, screen­shots of the post and Row­ley's com­ment con­tin­ue to be shared on so­cial me­dia.

How­ev­er in his state­ment, An­nisette was crit­i­cal of Row­ley's re­marks and ques­tioned whether he de­lib­er­ate­ly with­eld in­for­ma­tion of any al­leged ha­rass­ment of women while in of­fice.

"What is es­pe­cial­ly trou­bling is the tim­ing and plat­form of these dis­clo­sures.

"If, as al­leged, such ac­tions oc­curred when Dr Row­ley held the high­est of­fice in the land, then the fail­ure to re­port or ad­dress them at the ap­pro­pri­ate time is deeply ir­re­spon­si­ble and un­der­mines pub­lic trust in our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions.

"NATUC main­tains that no in­di­vid­ual, re­gard­less of their past or present sta­tus, should en­joy im­mu­ni­ty or sanc­tu­ary when it comes to with­hold­ing knowl­ege of po­ten­tial crim­i­nal con­duct in the pub­lic ser­vice."

An­nisette fur­ther ac­cused Row­ley of not act­ing fair­ly while in of­fice.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Row­ley for a re­sponse to NATUC's me­dia re­lease but was un­suc­cess­ful.