Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

No ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed to sup­port al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion made by San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, San Fer­nan­do East ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, or their wit­ness­es, ac­cord­ing to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu, who led the par­ty’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter.

Speak­ing at a PNM me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Bood­hu said he heard Man­ning state on a ra­dio pro­gramme that the ba­sis of his al­le­ga­tions was in­for­ma­tion he had read in news­pa­per re­ports.

“But the news­pa­per clip­ping was not even pro­duced,” Bood­hu said, adding the in­ves­tiga­tive team man­dat­ed to ex­am­ine the San Fer­nan­do East mat­ter had al­ready de­liv­ered its find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions.

He not­ed that the first rec­om­men­da­tion, which re­lates to Man­ning’s con­cern about the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups, is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by Fri­day, while work on the re­main­ing rec­om­men­da­tions is on­go­ing.

“This process is well un­der­way and is now at the res­o­lu­tion stage, no longer the in­quiry stage,” he said.

Bood­hu al­so re­ject­ed Man­ning’s crit­i­cism of the par­ty’s han­dling of the mat­ter.

“It is in­ac­cu­rate to sug­gest that the par­ty has not tak­en ex­ten­sive steps to ad­dress the com­plaints raised by both par­ties,” he said.

He out­lined the se­quence of events since Alex­is sub­mit­ted her writ­ten com­plaint on June 10 and Man­ning filed his com­plaint on June 16:

Both com­plaints were raised be­fore the gen­er­al coun­cil (GC) and cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive (CE).

The GC ap­point­ed a five-mem­ber com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the com­plaints un­der GC-ap­proved terms of ref­er­ence.

The com­mit­tee es­tab­lished writ­ten pro­ce­dures, which were dis­closed to both com­plainants.

Both com­plainants were in­vit­ed to ap­pear be­fore the com­mit­tee and present wit­ness­es.

Man­ning at­tend­ed with an ad­vis­er, while Alex­is ap­peared alone.

Both par­ties were al­lowed to present two wit­ness­es each.

In­quiries were con­duct­ed with all six in­di­vid­u­als.

A re­port was pre­pared and pre­sent­ed at the GC meet­ing on Au­gust 15, when it was known the re­port would be de­liv­ered. Man­ning did not at­tend and pro­vid­ed no ex­pla­na­tion for his ab­sence.

At that meet­ing, the GC es­tab­lished a five-mem­ber com­mit­tee com­pris­ing three mem­bers ap­point­ed by the GC and one rep­re­sen­ta­tive each nom­i­nat­ed by Man­ning and Alex­is.

Alex­is made a nom­i­na­tion.

Man­ning ini­tial­ly ap­point­ed PNM To­ba­go deputy leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis with­out con­sult­ing her. Cud­joe sub­se­quent­ly de­clined. Man­ning then nom­i­nat­ed PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, again with­out pri­or con­sul­ta­tion.

The GC ap­point­ed its three rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and the com­mit­tee’s work is cur­rent­ly un­der­way and ex­pect­ed to con­clude by Fri­day, af­ter which a re­port will be sub­mit­ted to the GC.

Both par­ties were in­vit­ed to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion, doc­u­ments and ev­i­dence of any na­ture.

No ev­i­dence sup­port­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, crim­i­nal­i­ty, or breach­es of par­ty dis­ci­pli­nary rules was pre­sent­ed.

Man­ning in­di­cat­ed that the cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions came to his at­ten­tion through news­pa­per re­ports.

A spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing was con­vened on June 29, and the com­mit­tee was es­tab­lished.

The com­mit­tee’s re­port was com­plet­ed by Ju­ly 31.

Bood­hu said the up­com­ing re­port to the gen­er­al coun­cil would de­ter­mine the next steps based on the com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tions.

He added that the par­ty-group ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise in­volves com­par­ing San Fer­nan­do East’s par­ty-group records with those main­tained at the PNM’s head of­fice.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the par­ty’s lead­er­ship is sched­uled to meet with par­ty groups, chair­men and con­stituen­cy groups to­day to up­date them on the sta­tus of the mat­ter.