PNM rejects claims of Balisier House financing probe

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) says it has no fear of any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fi­nanc­ing of the re­con­struc­tion of its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters, as it dis­missed on­line spec­u­la­tion as po­lit­i­cal in­tim­i­da­tion by the Gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne said the par­ty would not be in­tim­i­dat­ed by un­con­firmed re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia al­leg­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is in­ves­ti­gat­ing how the par­ty fi­nanced its head­quar­ters.

No such in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been con­firmed by the TTPS.

“The PNM is not afraid of the UNC, not afraid of threats be­ing made, and all of these ru­mours be­ing spilt,” Browne said.

“That’s the Gov­ern­ment’s modus operan­di, to use the me­dia and their so­cial me­dia state­ments to try to in­tim­i­date those that they feel are their en­e­mies.”

He said the par­ty would not be drawn in­to re­act­ing to spec­u­la­tion.

“So un­til any in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­folds, or some­thing be­comes con­crete, there’s no fear com­ing, and no re­ac­tion that they may wish to their tac­tics of in­tim­i­da­tion.”

Browne al­so ref­er­enced for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning on the ten-year an­niver­sary of his pass­ing, say­ing he be­lieved Man­ning had sim­i­lar­ly faced po­lit­i­cal pres­sure over the years.

“I sus­pect Mr Man­ning might have had a sim­i­lar po­si­tion, be­cause he was al­so threat­ened and in­tim­i­dat­ed, and there were at­tempts to pres­sure him as well, as has al­ways been the case from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” Browne said.

His com­ments come amid re­newed po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy over Bal­isi­er House, fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions first raised ear­li­er this year by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment.

Dur­ing a con­tri­bu­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in March, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged that the PNM hi­er­ar­chy had ben­e­fit­ed from “drug mafia fi­nanciers” and claimed the par­ty’s head­quar­ters stood as “a grave­stone to drug mon­ey, pae­dophil­ia and theft.”

Those al­le­ga­tions prompt­ed an an­gry re­sponse from for­mer prime min­is­ter and PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who chal­lenged the PM to pro­duce ev­i­dence sup­port­ing the claims. He in­sist­ed Bal­isi­er House was fi­nanced through con­tri­bu­tions from par­ty mem­bers, pri­vate donors and au­tho­rised fundrais­ing raf­fles, while re­veal­ing he per­son­al­ly con­tributed five per cent of his salary dur­ing his tenure as both op­po­si­tion leader and prime min­is­ter to­wards the project.

Al­so re­spond­ing to the lat­est ru­mours was Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young, who said his con­cern cen­tred on what he de­scribed as the po­lit­i­cal tar­get­ing of the Op­po­si­tion.

“As a life­time mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, I have con­cerns about the same top­ic I just came off of, which is po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion and po­lit­i­cal tar­get­ing and weapon­is­ing the State when it comes to your po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.”

Young said he be­lieved the Gov­ern­ment was cross­ing lines that pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions had been crit­i­cised for ap­proach­ing.

“We’re see­ing state­ments by politi­cians tra­vers­ing on ground that they should not be tra­vers­ing on,” he said.

“When we were in gov­ern­ment for the 10-year pe­ri­od, if a min­is­ter on­ly said, ‘Well, I spoke to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice,’ the up­roar that you would have was that that is an in­tru­sion in­to in­de­pen­dent of­fices.”

He ar­gued that the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion re­flect­ed a far more se­ri­ous de­vel­op­ment.

“I see the par­ty that I’m a mem­ber of be­ing per­se­cut­ed and di­rect­ed at­tacks at us and this type of thing. And I’m al­ways con­cerned when a state be­gins to weaponise.”

Pressed on whether he per­son­al­ly feared be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, Young replied: “Not per­son­al­ly.”

In­stead, he urged the me­dia to con­tin­ue scru­ti­n­is­ing de­vel­op­ments, warn­ing that po­lit­i­cal tar­get­ing could even­tu­al­ly ex­tend be­yond politi­cians.

“Be­cause it’s this per­son to­day, that per­son to­mor­row, and the day af­ter is you,” he said.