Rishard Khan

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has con­firmed that he has made re­quests to po­ten­tial bene­fac­tors with­in the Com­mon­wealth com­mu­ni­ty to cov­er the costs of in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers for the up­com­ing Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

In a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Sun­day, Row­ley out­lined the is­sues faced get­ting the ob­servers to come to the coun­try to over­see the elec­tion.

He said in­vi­ta­tions were sent on Ju­ly 9 to the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) and the Com­mon­wealth to con­sid­er send­ing Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions here for the elec­tion, while al­so no­ti­fy­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tions of the manda­to­ry 14-day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od for all en­trants in­to the coun­try as part of the es­tab­lished COVID-19 pro­to­col.

“Both or­gan­i­sa­tions have ad­vised of their in­abil­i­ty to meet the cost as­so­ci­at­ed with the four­teen-day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od re­quired for en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go, which is an in­te­gral part of our man­age­ment of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Specif­i­cal­ly, they cit­ed con­straints due to fi­nan­cial stric­tures that dis­al­low them from meet­ing this cost,” Row­ley said in the re­lease said.

“To en­sure the in­tegri­ty of the con­tri­bu­tion of the Mis­sions (rec­om­men­da­tions and the re­port of Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions), it is deemed nec­es­sary that the host Gov­ern­ment (Trinidad and To­ba­go) not cov­er the costs re­lat­ed to the quar­an­tine of mem­bers of the Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions.”

In light of this, Row­ley said re­quests were made to po­ten­tial bene­fac­tors with­in the Com­mon­wealth com­mu­ni­ty to cov­er these costs but to date “no de­fin­i­tive pos­i­tive re­sults have been ob­tained and the time­ly ar­rival has ex­pired if per­sons were to fol­low the es­tab­lished manda­to­ry pro­to­col.”

He said should any al­ter­na­tive arrange­ment for trav­el be­come avail­able, “such re­quests will be sub­ject to con­di­tions laid down by the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer in the most fa­cil­i­ta­to­ry and safe way.”

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to per­se­vere in at­tempt­ing to se­cure the nec­es­sary re­sources and modal­i­ties to en­cour­age the ar­rival of at least one Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sion. At this time, it ap­pears that on­ly a Cari­com mis­sion might be avail­able if health pro­to­cols can be met,” it end­ed.

How­ev­er, in or­der to safe­ly go through a 14-day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od in time to over­see the Au­gust 10 elec­tion, any ob­servers will have to be in T&T by to­day for the lat­est.

But Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ac­cus­ing Row­ley of try­ing to mis­lead the pub­lic on the is­sue.

In a re­lease Sun­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that Row­ley said the Com­mon­wealth didn’t think a team would be able to come be­cause of the cost and that it was al­so dif­fi­cult to get to T&T since there are no com­mer­cial flights.

But she said Sec­tion 8.2 of the guide­lines for Com­mon­wealth elec­tion ob­ser­va­tion states that the costs of each ob­serv­er mis­sion is cov­ered by the Sec­re­tari­at and no funds are sought from the host mem­ber coun­try be­ing ob­served.

“Row­ley’s ac­tions can now be viewed as an at­tempt to not on­ly stall the process so that ob­serv­er teams would not have enough time to en­ter the coun­try and un­der­go the manda­to­ry 14-day quar­an­tine, but a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to hood­wink the pop­u­la­tion mere days be­fore the elec­tion and avoid scruti­ny,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

In the past, she said in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers have played an im­por­tant role in the 2007, 2010 and 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

“We have al­ways had a long tra­di­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Elec­tions Ob­servers present in Trinidad and To­ba­go and as such they must be present,” she said.

“We have seen the piv­otal role in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers played in the re­cent elec­tions in Guyana and we can agree that with­out them, their elec­tions would have not re­flect­ed the true will of the peo­ple.”

She said Dr Row­ley must “take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty if in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers are un­able to ar­rive here in time to en­sure prop­er scruti­ny of the elec­tion process” and called on him to act im­me­di­ate­ly to put the nec­es­sary arrange­ments in place.