Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has threat­ened to sue any and every one “to the ends of the earth,” if they ma­lign him with al­le­ga­tions he com­mit­ted an il­le­gal act in how he de­clared his town­house in Shir­van, To­ba­go.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day, Row­ley said he had con­sult­ed his at­tor­neys and would al­so be su­ing his fel­low par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Wade Mark and Sad­dam Ho­sein.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, the two men had ac­cused Row­ley of be­ing in breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act for fail­ing to de­clare his prop­er­ty on one form, al­though Row­ley said he had de­clared it on an­oth­er form.

“I am in con­sul­ta­tion with my lawyers and all that they have to say in the press con­fer­ence and wher­ev­er else they does meet, they will come and tell that in a court of law. You think it easy for me to stom­ach Wade Mark call­ing me a crim­i­nal? Wade Mark! From the UNC? Call­ing me a crim­i­nal be­cause they have a dif­fer­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion go­ing on than the one by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion,” Row­ley said.

Row­ley, how­ev­er, blamed the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, say­ing that the mat­ter should have been prop­er­ly dealt with as far back as 2021, when the Op­po­si­tion first raised the is­sue. He said it was a tac­tic of the UNC to at­tack him close to elec­tion, as this is­sue was first raised in the lead-up to the 2021 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, while in 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion he and his de­ceased fa­ther were ac­cused of be­ing rapists.

Row­ley said he will be tak­ing le­gal ac­tion on the cur­rent is­sue, as his rep­u­ta­tion is not one to be tri­fled with.

In 2018, Row­ley said the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion made pro­pos­als to amend the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. One of the pro­pos­als in­cludes plac­ing both land and build­ings on de­c­la­ra­tion form B, which is a pub­lic doc­u­ment.

The pro­pos­al, he said, is just that and un­til the law changes, he will con­tin­ue as he has been. He said if it is not care­ful, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion will en­sure that peo­ple stay away from pub­lic ser­vice be­cause of its han­dling of the mat­ter.

“I’m say­ing again, an in­tegri­ty com­mis­sion ought to have in­tegri­ty. That’s what I’m say­ing. There’s no way the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion should have al­lowed this to reach where it reached. Now it is telling the pub­lic, caus­ing the Ex­press to pub­lish on the front page ‘Row­ley in breach’ and say­ing well, he in breach, but we did not both­er to send it to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), as if they were do­ing me some favour.”

Asked if he had lost faith in the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, the Prime Min­is­ter said he want­ed to fo­cus his at­ten­tion on clear­ing his name and would deal with that at a lat­er date. He said he did not have an an­swer to the check and bal­ances to se­lect the best suit­ed can­di­dates for the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, adding that the mould for such a hu­man is some­where in heav­en.

Row­ley stressed that he was nev­er asked by the com­mis­sion to amend his de­c­la­ra­tions in the past nor was he told there was an is­sue with it. He said pri­or to the Op­po­si­tion rais­ing the is­sue, he was in right stand­ing with the com­mis­sion and it should have made that clear from the first op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“I just want­ed to ad­vise the me­dia, don’t let them car­ry you where they are go­ing, be­cause from to­day, any­body else who ac­cuse me of not dis­clos­ing to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. I will sue you to the ends of the earth.”

Ram­lo­gan wants probe re­opened

While the Prime Min­is­ter called for the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to clear his name, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan wrote to the body call­ing for a re-open­ing of its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Row­ley’s town­house pur­chase.

Last week dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter said the com­mis­sion wrote to him and told him he was cleared of any wrong­do­ing af­ter the Op­po­si­tion asked that he be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Some of the is­sues in­clude whether Row­ley de­lib­er­ate­ly un­der­val­ued his town­house to de­fraud the Board of In­land Rev­enue by pay­ing less stamp du­ty; whether he would have re­ceived a dis­count on the prop­er­ty by a par­ty fi­nancier had he not been the Prime Min­is­ter and that he “patent­ly failed to main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence and trust.”

Ram­lo­gan, on Au­gust 3, threat­ened to sue the IC for its de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Row­ley. His let­ter yes­ter­day raised 16 new com­plaints. Ram­lo­gan al­so wrote to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to have the Fraud Squad in­ves­ti­gate the deal­ings.