Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has again test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

His con­di­tion was con­firmed by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter through a so­cial me­dia post.

Ac­cord­ing to the OPM, Dr Row­ley was test­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing mild flu-like symp­toms on Wednes­day night.

It said the PM will thus re­main in iso­la­tion in keep­ing with the cur­rent COVID-19 pro­to­cols but will con­tin­ue work­ing from his of­fice at the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence.

He still led the week­ly Cab­i­net meet­ing yes­ter­day vir­tu­al­ly and is al­so ex­pect­ed to at­tend Par­lia­ment vir­tu­al­ly to­day, where he will an­swer Prime Min­is­ter’s ques­tions.

This is the fourth time the Prime Min­is­ter has test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, UNC MP Rod­ney Charles wished Row­ley a speedy re­cov­ery .

How­ev­er, Charles has chal­lenged Row­ley to an­swer var­i­ous ques­tions vir­tu­al­ly to­day, in­clud­ing if the Paria Com­mis­sion of En­quiry’s re­port will be made pub­lic.

Charles cri­tiqued Gov­ern­ment’s en­er­gy and crime fight­ing thrust, rais­ing ques­tions for Row­ley to an­swer. Af­ter rais­ing his queries, Charles was asked about re­ceiv­ing replies, as Row­ley was ill; and if his queries would be lodged in Par­lia­ment to­day.

Not­ing Op­po­si­tion ques­tions in Par­lia­ment are sub­ject to ap­proval, Charles said, “But as hu­man be­ings, we (at least both of us here to­day) wish the Prime Min­is­ter a speedy re­cov­ery.

“We may have dif­fer­ent views on how T&T should run. I be­lieve that he’s not the best in T&T at this time but when it comes to a mat­ter of health, we stand fore­most in our de­sire for him to have a speedy re­cov­ery.

“Hav­ing said that, it’s pos­si­ble he could an­swer these ques­tions vir­tu­al­ly, we hope he does be­cause these are fun­da­men­tal ques­tions...”

With to­mor­row’s first an­niver­sary of the Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, tragedy at Paria Fu­el’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty, where four LM­CS divers died, Charles chal­lenged Row­ley to give a vir­tu­al com­mit­ment to pub­lish the Paria CoE re­port and take im­me­di­ate ac­tion to as­sist the fam­i­lies of the five divers in­volved. The re­port is due by East­er.

Charles not­ed re­ports on the fifth div­er and his “in­abil­i­ty to be a man with his fam­i­ly.” He said no­body in Paria was con­cerned about him.

“Are we wait­ing for him to com­mit sui­cide?” Charles asked.

Charles al­so in­sist­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds must “go.”

“What­ev­er Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Christo­pher does or will do, will be over­shad­owed by (his) ab­solute in­com­pe­tence. Madam CoP may walk with Hinds dur­ing Car­ni­val but she can­not hide the per­va­sive lack of pol­i­cy di­rec­tion and vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship on crime from Min­is­ter Hinds and the Cab­i­net to which he be­longs.”

He said Hinds boast­ed Car­ni­val 2023 was safe and se­cure for rev­ellers, “... com­plete­ly ig­nor­ing the fact that nine mur­ders were com­mit­ted be­tween Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day and Tues­day evening. Oth­ers are in hos­pi­tal nurs­ing gun­shot wounds.”

Charles posed ques­tions for Row­ley or Hinds.

“I want PM Row­ley, if he is a man and if he’s in­ter­est­ed in trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, to an­swer these crime-re­lat­ed ques­tions.”

Charles added, “We, in­clud­ing those of us in the UNC, all want Row­ley to suc­ceed with the Drag­on Gas ini­tia­tive ... but this leaves us face to face with un­for­giv­ing geopo­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ties on Drag­on Gas... Row­ley and (Stu­art) Young must not un­der any cir­cum­stances: flit­ter (sic) away our lim­it­ed FX on a mon­u­men­tal­ly risky Drag­on project, or he mustn’t con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions with­out ac­tive in­volve­ment of T&T’s tech­nocrats and en­er­gy ex­perts. “

He felt the project can still hap­pen if Venezuela re­jects the terms giv­en un­der the US li­cence, since he not­ed elec­tions in the US and Venezuela in the next two years. How­ev­er, he said he felt the project’s in “ICU.”