Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh says the ap­point­ment of for­mer Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Dar­ryl Smith as a com­mer­cial of­fi­cer in the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try is a slap in the face of all women in T&T.

Ad­dress­ing Smith’s ap­point­ment at the Op­po­si­tion’s week­ly me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, In­dars­ingh said Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon should be ashamed as a woman to car­ry the note to Cab­i­net to fa­cil­i­tate the ap­point­ment of Smith.

The min­istry re­vealed that Smith was one of three com­mer­cial of­fi­cers ap­point­ed to de­vel­op over­seas mar­kets and boost ex­ports to key strate­gic trad­ing part­ners.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley fired Smith from his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio in 2018 for in­ter­fer­ing im­prop­er­ly in the pub­lic ser­vice, re­sult­ing in fi­nan­cial costs to tax­pay­ers. How­ev­er, there were re­ports of sex­u­al mis­con­duct dur­ing his tenure and sub­se­quent pay­ment of $150,000 to the al­leged vic­tim with a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment.

“This ap­point­ment is a slap in the face for all women in the coun­try and all vic­tims of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in and out of the work­place and is send­ing a very dan­ger­ous sig­nal to all men in this coun­try that you can vi­o­late women, and you can abuse them in the work­place,” In­dars­ingh said.

In­dars­ingh said the UNC want­ed to know Smith’s com­pen­sa­tion pack­age, ex­pe­ri­ence in trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, and terms and con­di­tions of his con­tract. 

Guardian Me­dia tried call­ing Smith and send­ing him a mes­sage on What­sApp, but there was no re­sponse.

In­dars­ingh al­so com­ment­ed on a Sun­day Ex­press re­port that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) in­curred a $15 mil­lion bill for the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the deaths of LM­CS divers Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Yusuf Hen­ry and Rishi Na­gas­sar and in­juries to Christo­pher Boodram at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

The re­port stat­ed there may be lit­i­ga­tion costs over the OPM’s fail­ure to pro­vide a de­tailed break­down of all ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the ex­pens­es. The OPM said it could not re­veal peo­ple’s in­for­ma­tion be­cause of the high crime rate and risk of crim­i­nals tar­get­ing them. In­dars­ingh coun­tered, say­ing Row­ley did not care about crim­i­nals rob­bing peo­ple in their homes but about those in­volved in the CoE.

“You can tell the coun­try how much was paid to Jerome Lynch KC. You could tell the coun­try how much was paid to Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj SC and ju­nior coun­sels, but why do you not want the coun­try to know how much was paid to Se­nior Coun­sel Gilbert Pe­ter­son? It is the same fel­la who was act­ing on be­half of Paria and did not want the fam­i­ly to tes­ti­fy be­fore the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry.”

Mean­while, In­dars­ingh said Row­ley’s re­cent rev­e­la­tion that US au­thor­i­ties ad­vised him to cre­ate a spe­cial­ly vet­ted unit with­in the TTPS was sus­pi­cious.

“It is in­deed telling that the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced his in­ten­tion to cre­ate a sup­pos­ed­ly new, high-in­tegri­ty unit in the same week as when we see po­lice of­fi­cers in­vad­ing the home of the Chief Sec­re­tary in To­ba­go and oth­ers op­posed to the PNM,” he said.

For­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs told the Sun­day Guardian, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view, that es­tab­lish­ing a vet­ted unit was a recipe for cor­rup­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained last week that the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI) sug­gest­ed the for­ma­tion of the unit as part of the US work­ing with this coun­try to tack­le crime.

Yes­ter­day, the UNC de­mand­ed de­tails of the unit, such as whether it will re­port to the Gov­ern­ment or Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the size, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture, and cri­te­ria for ap­ply­ing.

In­dars­ingh said ex­pe­ri­ence showed that the is­sue of ex­tra pay to of­fi­cers as­signed to the Spe­cial An­ti-crime Unit led to low morale and di­vi­sive­ness among po­lice of­fi­cers. He said it was al­so the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued dis­re­gard for labour laws and trade unions.