(Trinidad Express) Former government minister Verna St Rose Greaves was fired because she tried to force the Cabinet into accepting her own position of pro-gay rights and pro-abortion with respect to the national gender policy, says Sport Minister Anil Roberts.
“She wanted her own way or the highway. Hell hath no fury like a woman fired!”
Roberts held a news conference yesterday outside the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair, where he launched a scathing attack on St Rose Greaves, former minister of Gender, Child and Youth Development, for the comments she made on national television against the Prime Minister.
St Rose Greaves alleged Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had a substance abuse problem and questioned her capability in running the country.
Persad-Bissessar on Wednesday refuted the allegations made by her former minister.
The PM sacked St Rose Greaves in June and replaced her with former San Fernando mayor, Marlene Coudray.
“If you remember when she (St Rose Greaves) was a minister before the consultation occurred (on the gender policy) she gave her opinion on two sensitive matters, on abortion and on gay marriage. You cannot put the cart before the horse if we are going for consultation,” said Roberts.
“You cannot first of all state your opinion and then pretend to go and consult, that’s what Verna St Rose Greaves, former minister, attempted to do and attempted to railroad the entire Cabinet and the Government and for her comment out now, because she’s been fired and to attack a prime minister in such a vile, personal, untrue, dishonest manner is cowardly for an independent strong woman as Verna and I withdraw my respect from her totally and completely.
“The Prime Minister has been under attack from so many people and she stays quiet, calm and classy that I decided this time that one went too far,” he added.
Roberts said the Prime Minister and the Cabinet did not attack St Rose Greaves when an employee from her former ministry, Cheryl Miller, was sent to St Ann’s Hospital against her will.
“When a female comes and attacks another one about mental stability and all sorts of rubbish, ridiculous nature, I cannot stand by and see that, especially when the person making the accusation has a lot of questions about her actions when she sent a sane woman to St Ann’s … maybe she should have made a visit herself,” said Roberts.
St Rose Greaves, in her television interview, also claimed the Prime Minister was not in charge and was being blackmailed.
Said Roberts: “If she suggests that the Prime Minister is not in charge, then who fired her?”