Trinidad & Tobago: Motion of no confidence Persad-Bissessar administration denies allegations

The coalition People’s Partnership government Monday strenuously denied allegations that it was engaged in attempts to undermine the judiciary and the media and dismissed as “frivolous and a waste of parliamentary time” the opposition’s motion of no confidence in the Kamla Persad-Bissessar led administration.

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan said the motion filed by the opposition Leader Keith Rowley was “devoid of merit and an act of political desperation.

The attorney general sought to distance the government from a series of e-mails that Rowley had read into Parliament showing how operatives within the government had sought to undermine the judiciary, parliament and media in Trinidad & Tobago.

“You really believe that the Prime Minister who lives five minutes away from the attorney general…would send emails all night,” Ramlogan said after Rowley had earlier told legislators that he had received at least 31 emails from a “whistle blower” and had passed them on to the Office of the President in December last year.

Rowley said the emails, dating back to September 2012, were from people concerned with the government’s defense of the early proclamation of Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act that had the effect of allowing people, whose trial has not started after a 10-year period to walk free and a verdict of not guilty entered against their names.

Critics say that the clause was aimed at supporting businessmen Ish Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson, who have been described as financiers of the ruling United National Congress (UNC), the biggest partner in the four-member coalition People’s Partnership government.

The two are facing fraud and laundering charges relating to the re-development of the main Piarco International Airport in 2001. They are also wanted in the United States on a number of related charges. -(CMC)