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Monday, July 7, 2025

PM on McDonald: No crisis - Ship of State flows smoothly along

by

Sampson Nanton
2152 days ago
20190815
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowleyspeking at poost cabinet meeting.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowleyspeking at poost cabinet meeting.

Nicole Drayton

"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.

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

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.


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