(Trinidad Express) Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley has filed a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
Making the announcement yesterday at a news conference at his Charles Street, Port of Spain office, Rowley stated: “We have had enough. So this morning I have filed in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister. I have asked the Parliament through the relevant Standing Order to make provision for this matter to be debated at the earliest possible opportunity. Under the regulations this motion requires a 12-day notice period and takes priority over all other business. When the Carnival is conducted and is over, on behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, the Opposition goes to the Parliament to conduct the nation’s business by moving a vote of no confidence.”
The motion which is all embracing refers to the Prime Minister’s “gross incompetence”, the Government failure to stimulate the economy as well as the inability to effectively manage officers under the control of the Prime Minister.
“The population has had enough of the experience of maladministration in governance and we need to call the Government to order,” he said, adding that the no-confidence motion was not about the actual votes cast, but about what is said during the debate. The Government has 29 votes against the PNM’s 12.
The last time a motion of confidence was filed it was done by then-opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and in the attempt to avoid debate on it, the then-prime minister Patrick Manning called the May 2010 election and lost.
Rowley challenged the veracity of Attorney General Anand Ramlogan’s statement that he had no control over the Anti Corruption Investigations Bureau, which raided the Newsday offices and the home of journalist Andre Bagoo last week.
“You can believe nothing that the Attorney General says,” the Opposition Leader said.
He quoted extensively from newspaper articles in which the Attorney General announced on August 13, 2010 that he had appointed a team of lawyers to work in conjunction with the ACIB to unearth corruption at University of Trinidad and Tobago, Petrotrin, T&TEC, SPORTT and e-tecK.
He also quoted Ramlogan as saying in the newspapers on November 17, 2010 that he “gave instructions” and “mandated the ACIB to probe the operations at the URP”.
Rowley said the UNC gave the country the understanding in 2008 that it would remove the ACIB from under the Attorney General office. He said Ramlogan failed to do so and instead entrenched the office. Rowley said now that the ACIB has done something which had not found favour with the vast majority of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, Ramlogan was not only running from it, but was seeking to invoke the name of former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj to ascribe blame.
He noted Ramlogan stated that it was always a matter of concern to him that Maharaj had set up this body to compile files on his own political colleagues.
“Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has not been Attorney General for the last 12 years,” Rowley said. He said based on all these facts, why should the country believe the Attorney General when he says he had no knowledge of what the ACIB was up to in a matter of ferreting out corruption in the juicy state of the Integrity Commission.
Rowley said he wanted to tell Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs “I told you so. If you allow your office to be used for political expediency, they would hang you out to dry”.
Rowley said the same thing happened in the State of Emergency and with the alleged plot to assassinate the Prime Minister, in which the Government got the Police to do certain things and at the end of the day when all the persons had to be released for lack of evidence, the Police were left to take the blame.
