(Trinidad Express) Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is not currently under probe by the Integrity Commission for any matter.
At yesterday’s post-Cabinet media conference at her St Clair office, Persad-Bissessar read and distributed a letter sent to her (dated yesterday) in which Registrar of the Commission, Martin Farrell, stated: “I have been directed by the Integrity Commission to advise you, as of the above date (August 4) there is no complaint against you in relation to any matter before the Commission.”
This letter was a response to correspondence sent by the Prime Minister on Wednesday night, following allegations made by People’s National Movement (PNM) Senator Fitzgerald Hinds at a media conference earlier that day, that she misled the country when she said at last Thursday’s post-Cabinet media conference that she was cleared by the Commission of all wrongdoing in relation to her stay at the private residence of her friends Ralph and Maureen Gopaul.
Persad-Bissessar’s statement then was based on a letter sent to her by the Commission, dated July 25. That letter stated: “Dear Prime Minister, re: complaint of alleged breach of the Integrity in Public Life Act Chap 22:01, pertaining to your stay at the Gopauls’ residence at Pasea Road in Tunapuna, has been received. The Commission has considered the matter and rejected the complaint”.
But following Hinds’ allegations that she was not telling the full story, the Prime Minister wrote the Commission on Wednesday to ask whether there were any pending complaints against her in relation to the Gopaul issue or any other matter.
Yesterday as she displayed the Commission’s letter in response to her query, the Prime Minister said it was the PNM, not her, who was guilty of misrepresentation and of telling untruths.
“There is lies and lies and lies and this is what has happened with respect to this matter. This letter here is the lie to the allegations being made by Senator Hinds,” the Prime Minister said, waving the letter sent to her by the Commission.
“What this tells us really is that there is a pattern of behaviour that has emerged on the path of Opposition members,” she said. She recalled the allegations made by Opposition Leader Keith Rowley against the Attorney General alleging that he had made certain statements during a visit to the mission in New York. The Government subsequently received confirmation that the Attorney General did not visit the mission.
The Prime Minister noted that although the matter was referred to the Privileges Committee, Rowley was “saved” by the prorogation of Parliament which meant that all matters before the Committee lapsed. “But the evidence in black and white was clear that the AG had never visited those missions and therefore was not in any position to make remarks to anyone at those missions,” she said.
She said the Opposition was taking one point and stretching it into a million things. “Repeated lies is their modus operandi and the pattern of behaviour that has developed amongst them,” she said.
When contacted yesterday, Hinds said he was not lying since everything he stated at his press conference on Wednesday was based on correspondence sent to him by the Integrity Commission. “I am supposed to rely on what they (the Commission) advised me by their letter of August 3,” he said.
That letter stated that “the Integrity Commission has …arrived at the view that the stay at the Gopauls’ residence in Tunapuna by the..Prime Minister..did not constitute a breach of the Integrity in Public Life Act. However, the other aspect of your complaint has been considered and is being investigated by the Integrity Commission. You will be informed of the decision of the Commission in due course”.
Hinds said many members of the public were expressing “shock and confusion because my communication with and from the Commission says one thing and their letter to the Prime Minister says another. I can’t explain it. Maybe they could”.
Hinds said he would expect that the Commission “would conduct a thorough and proper investigation into the complaint that I have made which they conceded was worthy of their attention and begun an investigation thereon”.
“And no proper and thorough investigation into bid-rigging at NP could be properly conducted without..the investigator looking at the motivation of the Board of NP to behave in the way they did….and this must include an analysis of the Gopauls relationship with the Prime Minister… I expect them (the Commission) to proceed along the lines that the Prime Minister having stayed at the Gopauls, the Gopauls having been favoured by NP with a $40 million contract, in circumstances where things went wrong according to the Attorney General.”
In his first letter to the Commission on the issue, dated May 19, Hinds had asked it to probe “the entire matter touching and concerning the conduct of the Prime Minister as it relates to her occupation of the residence, and also, the conduct of the Prime Minister and the board and management of NP in respect of the probable issuance of the contract aforementioned”.
In her letter to the Commission on Wednesday night, the Prime Minister said she was advised that Senator Hinds had publicly stated that she misled the public by disclosing the fact that the Commission had cleared her of any wrongdoing in the recent complaint concerning her stay at the private residence of the Gopaul family. “The only complaint of which I was notified by your Commission on that issue was dismissed,” she said, noting that copies of that letter were distributed to the media. “I have not been notified of any other complaint against me and hence I am extremely concerned about the defamatory insinuation by Senator Hinds,” her letter stated.
The Gopauls firm had been awarded a $40 million contract by State owned National Petroleum. The contract was subsequently cancelled after Attorney General Anand Ramlogan found that the procurement process was flawed.
