SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of mak­ing dan­ger­ous and un­found­ed claims against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) con­cern­ing for­eign na­tion­als’ abil­i­ty to re­turn home to vote in the Au­gust 20 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day as he re­spond­ed to claims by Per­sad-Bisses­sar that the PNM has been en­gag­ing in “back­door pol­i­tics” by al­low­ing their sup­port­ers to qui­et­ly en­ter the coun­try while de­lib­er­ate­ly block­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress loy­al­ists from re­turn­ing home due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ad­dress­ing the al­le­ga­tions fol­low­ing the open­ing of the Bagatelle Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Diego Mar­tin yes­ter­day, Row­ley, vis­i­bly up­set when asked the ques­tion, said, “Let me put it this way, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar has a habit of say­ing things that are not true.”

Not­ing con­stant at­tempts to put a neg­a­tive light on the coun­try, Row­ley said Per­sad-Bisses­sar needs to do “much bet­ter than that.”

“These things do not por­tray our coun­try in a good light. And when these al­le­ga­tions are based on naked lies, it must be hurt­ful to peo­ple who run the show,” he said in ref­er­ence to the work of the EBC, which he said is an in­sti­tu­tion we can all be proud of as far as run­ning elec­tions were con­cerned.

The PM said he had no idea where Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been ob­tain­ing her in­for­ma­tion, but took um­brage that she was try­ing to sug­gest not on­ly that the PNM was en­gag­ing in such ac­tiv­i­ty but that the EBC was com­plic­it in it as well.

“Suf­fice it to say it is all lies. And it is hurt­ful to the staff (of the EBC) for the leader of the Op­po­si­tion who some­how car­ries the am­bi­tion of be­ing Prime Min­is­ter again to come and tell such naked un­truths.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the claim while ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers dur­ing the UNC’s Moru­ga/Table­land of­fice open­ing in Moru­ga, ear­li­er this week. Call­ing for na­tion­als strand­ed abroad to be al­lowed to re­turn home to vote in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said then, “Whilst I do not call to open the bor­ders, I leave that for the med­ical peo­ple to tell us what is the best thing to do, in the best in­ter­est of the health of the coun­try. At the same time, they can­not be bring­ing peo­ple through the back door, bring­ing their sup­port­ers to vote.”

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Row­ley said this was not the first time Per­sad-Bisses­sar had made such un­found­ed ac­cu­sa­tions against the EBC. He said when T&T opened its doors for 16,000-plus Venezue­lans to work and re­side in our shores tem­porar­i­ly last year she al­so had un­found­ed al­le­ga­tions.

“When we were en­grossed in that prob­lem she was out front say­ing that the EBC was reg­is­ter­ing Venezue­lans when in fact all we were do­ing was keep­ing a record of Venezue­lans at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing this specif­i­cal­ly, the PM said on­ly a per­son born in T&T can qual­i­fy to be on the EBC’s vot­ing list.

“No Venezue­lan can come here and go in­to the EBC’s of­fice and get on the EBC list by any sub­terfuge. Our coun­try is not run like that. So the Op­po­si­tion Leader told a lie up­front.”

Row­ley again re­it­er­at­ed that the clo­sure of the bor­ders was not in­tend­ed to pun­ish Trinida­di­ans abroad.

“I have been all over the Unit­ed States, East, West, North and South and every­where you go you meet Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens. So when you say we closed the bor­ders, it is not to pun­ish any­body, it is just to keep the virus out.”

Hav­ing kept the virus out, Row­ley said, “There is no rea­son to play fast and loose now... by cry­ing on the TV you want to come home. I have no prob­lem with you not com­ing home. What I have a prob­lem with is the risk lev­el.”

He said if the Gov­ern­ment is crit­i­cised for man­ag­ing the bor­ders ef­fec­tive­ly to pro­tect the peo­ple he would plead guilty to that.

“But in so do­ing it is not sim­ple and easy for every­body... we know that peo­ple on the oth­er side of the bor­der...when we closed them...that they would have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed.”

He said the Gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed ex­emp­tions not on the num­ber of peo­ple who want to come in but on whether the health sys­tem could man­age who could come in.

“It would be ir­re­spon­si­ble of us, at this stage, to take ad­vice from an ir­re­spon­si­ble am­bi­tious leader, telling lies about elec­tions and em­bar­rass­ing the coun­try and talk­ing about peo­ple are be­ing brought in for elec­tions. That is to­tal­ly un­true. It is not fair to the hon­est peo­ple of this coun­try who see this coun­try as a place where hon­esty has a place,” Row­ley said.

The PM said he has no idea who has been com­ing in­to T&T out­side of what the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry would have briefed him about from time to time.