"As far as the Gov­ern­ment is con­cerned, there is no cri­sis in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Those were the words of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as he be­gan ad­dress­ing Thurs­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence on the mat­ter of dis­missed min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

"A cri­sis means dif­fer­ent things for dif­fer­ent peo­ple. For us the ship of state flows smooth­ly along," he said.

But the prime min­is­ter has ad­mit­ted that he made an er­ror in judge­ment by hav­ing re­turned Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald to the Cab­i­net, de­spite the al­le­ga­tions she had been fac­ing when he did.

"In hind­sight, I would say yes, but at the time I could on­ly have worked with the in­for­ma­tion that I had," he said.

He de­fend­ed his ac­tions as prime min­is­ter and in par­tic­u­lar, crit­i­cism that he took too long to act.

Al­though Mc­Don­ald was ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day, Dr Row­ley told the me­dia that he was not privy to of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to her un­til Sun­day night.

Marlene McDonald speaks to CNC3 as she leaves the St Clair medical Centre on Thursday.

Be­fore that, he said, he had to re­ly on the in­for­ma­tion pub­lished in the me­dia, ar­gu­ing that as a prime min­is­ter, he could not act on what was pub­lished in the press.

Dr Row­ley said that if at any time he had sought to con­tact the po­lice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions on the mat­ter, he could have been ac­cused of in­ter­fer­ing with a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said he wait­ed un­til he re­ceived of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion at 10.30 pm Sun­day, from a source he did not dis­close, be­fore he took im­me­di­ate ac­tion to have the pres­i­dent re­voke Mc­Don­ald's ap­point­ment as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter.

"What you want me to do? You want me to act with­out hav­ing in­for­ma­tion?"

"No­body in of­fi­cial­dom com­mu­ni­cat­ed with me as prime min­is­ter to in­di­cate there is sub­stance that a min­is­ter was in cus­tody."

"Some peo­ple are say­ing that the minute I heard that the DPP had grant­ed clear­ance to pro­ceed, I should have fired the min­is­ter. Heard from whom...the me­dia? That's like say­ing I see it in the pa­pers so it's true," the prime min­is­ter said.

In his view, con­trary to claims that the coun­try is in a cri­sis, the coun­try is mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion.

"This is what you want. The sys­tem is work­ing," he said, not­ing that cit­i­zens have long called for per­sons ac­cused of mis­con­duct to be pros­e­cut­ed.

"That is why the po­lice con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ar­rest­ed a min­is­ter with­out the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty even know­ing or the prime min­is­ter."

He said the gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to ef­fect a bet­ter court sys­tem, with more judges, more mas­ters of the court and more courts.

"It is work­ing. It will get bet­ter. It is not a cri­sis. It is a ray of hope," he said.

"We are build­ing a new so­ci­ety and some­times there is pain."

Marlene McDonald

Anisto Alves

Dr Row­ley re­mind­ed the me­dia how the en­tire Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald mat­ter de­vel­oped, not­ing that the first time the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion mat­ter came up was un­der the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion from 2008-2010, when the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion found no rea­son for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"When it came to me as prime min­is­ter, it was al­ready dealt with and there was a let­ter of ex­on­er­a­tion," he said.

Soon af­ter the elec­tion, he said, it flared up again "with some peo­ple say­ing there was a need for more in-depth analy­sis". It came, he not­ed, with the added al­le­ga­tions of ques­tion­able prac­tices at the Min­istry of Hous­ing, of which the Mc­Don­ald was Min­is­ter.

"I agreed that in face of a pack­age of new in­for­ma­tion held out, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was war­rant­ed and in or­der to let that pro­ceed, and in keep­ing with a com­mit­ment to moral­i­ty in pub­lic af­fairs, I moved Ms Mc­Don­ald from Hous­ing to let it pro­ceed," he said.

"That is what a prime min­is­ter is sup­posed to do. That is what I did."

That in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the prime min­is­ter said, found no sup­port for al­le­ga­tions re­lat­ed to the min­is­ter's be­hav­iour re­gard­ing the al­lo­ca­tion of hous­es, and the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion as­pect end­ed with­out any re­quire­ment for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He not­ed that she was brought back but he again act­ed on her when Beetham res­i­dent Cedric 'Burkie" Burke turned up at her swear­ing-in.

He said the min­is­ter was pe­nalised by be­ing re­moved from the port­fo­lio im­me­di­ate­ly.

He said the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion that re­sult­ed in the ar­rest last week came with new in­for­ma­tion and a new batch of wit­ness­es.

"I who fired her from Hous­ing to al­low an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to go for­ward and I who fired her from Pres­i­dent's House be­cause of lack of judge­ment, sud­den­ly be­came (last week) a prime min­is­ter who had failed to act. I thought that was a lit­tle bit un­rea­son­able," he said.

Mc­Don­ald is on $2 mil­lion bail on sev­er­al charges of cor­rup­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.