Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day de­scribed Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as “dis­re­spect­ful and des­per­ate” af­ter she mis­tak­en­ly crit­i­cised Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes for nom­i­nat­ing Ernest Koy­lass to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

The Pres­i­dent ac­tu­al­ly nom­i­nat­ed re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Ju­dith Jones and Max­ine At­tong but Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar slammed the Pres­i­dent for nam­ing Koy­lass.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er ex­plained that Koy­lass’ name was pro­posed along­side Jones and At­tong on the Oc­to­ber 7 let­ter to both her and Row­ley.

Yes­ter­day the PM said that there was “no need for that kind of be­hav­iour”.

“The way she loves the ac­co­lade of be­ing the “first woman Prime Min­is­ter” one would think that she would be­have prop­er­ly and show a mod­icum of re­spect for the first fe­male Pres­i­dent, her su­pe­ri­or,” Dr Row­ley said.

“She gen­uine­ly be­lieves that bac­cha­nal, jan­jhat and dis­re­spect­ful con­fu­sion is a sign of good and nec­es­sary lead­er­ship,” Row­ley said.

“So you are con­sult­ed, as the process re­quires, you do not agree, you say so and, at least, wait to see what hap­pens,” he ad­vised.

“Not so with this un­pleas­ant of­fice­hold­er who seizes every op­por­tu­ni­ty as one to cre­ate scan­dal and den­i­gra­tion of even in­no­cent peo­ple,” Row­ley said.

“This is the kind of be­hav­iour that dri­ves many de­cent peo­ple far away from get­ting in­volved in pub­lic ser­vice,” he said.

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes an­nounced yes­ter­day that she had ap­point­ed the two new com­mis­sion­ers.

Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar

The Pres­i­dent’s Of­fice said it con­sult­ed with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar on Oc­to­ber 7 about the nom­i­na­tions.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment short­ly af­ter call­ing for the Pres­i­dent to re­sign over her nom­i­na­tion of at­tor­ney Ernest Koy­lass.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Koy­lass’ name was sub­mit­ted along­side Jones and At­tong and he re­ceived high praise from the Pres­i­dent.

“Giv­en the con­tro­ver­sial man­ner in which the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) col­lapsed, one would have hoped that Her Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes would have ex­er­cised bet­ter judg­ment in at­tempt­ing to re­pair the se­ri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis that has arisen,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day.

“How­ev­er, based on Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s nom­i­na­tion of At­tor­ney-at-law Mr Ernest Koy­lass, it is abun­dant­ly clear that Her Ex­cel­len­cy has no in­ten­tion of main­tain­ing the crit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence of the PolSC,” she said.

“A quick Google search re­vealed sig­nif­i­cant ties to high-rank­ing mem­bers of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar list­ed three sep­a­rate con­nec­tions be­tween Koy­lass and high-rank­ing mem­bers of the PNM.

“Mr Koy­lass has a right to choose his po­lit­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tions, but by no stretch of the imag­i­na­tion can he be con­sid­ered free of po­lit­i­cal con­flicts of in­ter­est,” she said.

“It is note­wor­thy that Her Ex­cel­len­cy has yet to re­spond to the se­ri­ous ques­tion of whether Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley met with her to in­ter­fere in the PolSC mer­it list for the po­si­tion of Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er,” she said.

“Her Ex­cel­len­cy is ei­ther wil­ful­ly seek­ing to ob­struct the func­tion­ing of an in­de­pen­dent PolSC through bla­tant po­lit­i­cal par­ti­san ap­point­ments, or she is now tak­ing in­struc­tions di­rect­ly from the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment,” she said.

In an­oth­er me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day evening, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it ap­peared that the pres­i­dent was try­ing to rush the ap­point­ment of new com­mis­sion­ers.

She said she was on­ly giv­en two work­ing days (Fri­day 8th Oc­to­ber and Mon­day 11th Oc­to­ber) to do re­search and en­quiries in­to the names sub­mit­ted by the Pres­i­dent on Oc­to­ber 7th.

President Paula-Mae Weekes

“These en­quiries can­not be done in two days. The Pres­i­dent ap­pears to be rush­ing through these nom­i­na­tions in or­der to pre­vent prop­er scruti­ny and in­ves­ti­ga­tion of her nom­i­nees. Fur­ther, I am not a “rub­ber stamp” for these nom­i­na­tions, and care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and ex­am­i­na­tion must be made. Alarm­ing­ly to­day, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has is­sued a re­lease in­di­cat­ing that the nom­i­na­tions of two Com­mis­sion­ers on the PolSC were sent to Par­lia­ment. This process was com­plet­ed with­out the views of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion,” she said.

She added: “It is my re­spect­ful view that un­til Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes tells the na­tion all the de­tails about the now-in­fa­mous in­ter­fer­ence meet­ing, she has no moral or eth­i­cal au­thor­i­ty to make new PSC ap­point­ments.

“The Pres­i­dent, by not ad­dress­ing these is­sues pub­licly, is bring­ing the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent in­to dis­re­pute.

“She is do­ing ir­repara­ble dam­age to the democ­ra­cy of our coun­try. If she can­not come clean, she must re­sign,” she said.