PNM slams Balisier House ”distraction”; calls for campaign finance reform

For­mer prime min­is­ters Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young area ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fi­nanc­ing of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters to di­vert pub­lic at­ten­tion from what they say are more press­ing na­tion­al is­sues, in­clud­ing vi­o­lent crime, the for­eign ex­change short­age, eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, Point Lisas plant clo­sures, grow­ing debt and Trinidad and To­ba­go's ex­clu­sion from dis­cus­sions on Venezue­lan gas.

As the po­lit­i­cal fall­out con­tin­ued on Sun­day, PNM Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les used the con­tro­ver­sy to re­new the par­ty's call for cam­paign fi­nance re­form, chal­leng­ing the Gov­ern­ment to sup­port leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment.

"If the UNC cares about this coun­try, and not on­ly po­lit­i­cal bachan­nal and vic­tim­iza­tion, they will join with the PNM and bring clo­sure to the Cam­paign Fi­nance re­form leg­is­la­tion which to date they have spurned in the Par­lia­ment," Gon­za­les said.

Row­ley, in a state­ment post­ed on so­cial me­dia, de­scribed the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Bal­isi­er House as "dis­trac­tion on steroids", ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment was de­lib­er­ate­ly steer­ing pub­lic at­ten­tion away from what he de­scribed as its fail­ures in of­fice.

"The coun­try is in a mess, tur­moil and a pro­tract­ed state of per­pet­u­al emer­gency with no plan to ad­dress any of the many acute prob­lems of per­sis­tent vi­o­lent crime, for­eign ex­change crunch, Pt Lisas plant clo­sures, ex­clu­sion from Venezuela, rev­enue short­ages and pay­roll is­sues," he said.

Row­ley ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment had in­creased the coun­try's debt bur­den with­out pro­duc­ing mean­ing­ful re­sults.

"They bor­rowed $800 mil­lion USD and this on­ly in­creased the al­ready over­weight debt stock but saw no im­prove­ment to any­thing, any­where, so in this dis­as­trous na­tion­al quag­mire the na­tion­al gaze is steered to­wards Bal­isi­er House."

He al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment's Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, say­ing at­ten­tion quick­ly shift­ed from eco­nom­ic is­sues to al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing the Op­po­si­tion.

"The UNC Gov­ern­ment is heav­i­ly fo­cused on at­tempt­ing to dis­cred­it the PNM. This they hope will serve two pur­pos­es. It should dis­tract from the sad state of af­fairs en­gen­dered by the litany of woes that pass­es for gov­er­nance now and it is hoped to in­deli­bly stain the PNM."

Row­ley end­ed by de­clar­ing that the par­ty would sur­vive the lat­est con­tro­ver­sy.

"We didn't sur­vive 70 years (1956 to 2026) to be scared of the UNC that is ru­in­ing our coun­try."

The state­ments came a day af­ter the PNM re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing the fi­nanc­ing of its head­quar­ters, de­nied any wrong­do­ing and ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of pur­su­ing a po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed cam­paign against the Op­po­si­tion.

The par­ty said there was "noth­ing im­prop­er, un­law­ful or se­cre­tive" about the fi­nanc­ing of Bal­isi­er House or the fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties un­der­tak­en over many years. It al­so an­nounced it had as­sem­bled a le­gal team to chal­lenge the de­vel­op­ments.

The re­sponse fol­lowed re­ports that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice had ob­tained a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der as part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar re­de­vel­op­ment of the par­ty's head­quar­ters.

Ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments, po­lice are seek­ing to com­pel the PNM and its trustees to ex­plain the source of fund­ing for the project as part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to whether the par­ty's wealth ex­ceeds its law­ful­ly ob­tained in­come. An af­fi­davit filed by act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ram­dath Phillip al­leges in­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect the re­de­vel­op­ment may have been fi­nanced, in part, through cor­rupt arrange­ments in­volv­ing gov­ern­ment con­trac­tors who re­ceived favourable treat­ment in the award of State con­tracts while the PNM was in of­fice be­tween 2015 and 2025.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion as a dis­trac­tion from na­tion­al is­sues.

Young en­dorsed com­ments made by PNM Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who had ear­li­er de­scribed the le­gal pro­ceed­ings as po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.

"If there is any wrong­do­ing or crim­i­nal­i­ty any­where then that needs to be ad­dressed via the rule of law and prop­er due process with­out po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence," Young said.

He claimed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was "an at­tack on democ­ra­cy" and formed part of a wider cam­paign of po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion against the PNM.

"The UNC fo­cus­es on chang­ing a nar­ra­tive and dis­tract­ing the pop­u­la­tion with smoke and mir­rors," Young said.

He al­so point­ed to with­drawals from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund, in­creased bor­row­ing, the clo­sure of ma­jor petro­chem­i­cal plants and Trinidad and To­ba­go's ab­sence from cross-bor­der gas dis­cus­sions with Venezuela as ex­am­ples of is­sues he be­lieved were be­ing over­shad­owed.

"There have been with­drawals of over US$500 mil­lion from the HSF in the past year and we were told noth­ing. Bor­row­ings of over US$1.8 bil­lion at high in­ter­est rates to be re­paid in USD where we have low­er FOREX earn­ings. Our en­er­gy sec­tor is in cri­sis with two of our largest petro­chem­i­cal pro­duc­ers shut down... We are not at the ne­go­ti­a­tion ta­bles in Cara­cas, Venezuela with re­spect to dis­cus­sions on cross-bor­der gas."

Young said the Gov­ern­ment had de­liv­ered "noth­ing pos­i­tive and tan­gi­ble" since tak­ing of­fice in May 2025 that was not a con­tin­u­a­tion of projects start­ed un­der the PNM.

"It is dis­trac­tion af­ter dis­trac­tion with­out any re­al re­sults," he said.

Gon­za­les al­so said the PNM re­mained pre­pared to com­ply with any law­ful court process.

"As Chair­man of the PNM, let me re­mind the pop­u­la­tion that we in the PNM are and have al­ways been a law abid­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion dat­ing back to our for­ma­tion in 1956.

"With re­spect to the in­quiries and sus­pi­cions of the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment, we stand ready to com­ply should we re­ceive a court or­der, which we have not."

He said the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion had pre­vi­ous­ly ad­vanced cam­paign fi­nance re­form leg­is­la­tion to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee but claimed it failed to se­cure the UNC's sup­port. Gon­za­les added that for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has since re­turned the is­sue to Par­lia­ment through a pri­vate mem­ber's mo­tion, which is ex­pect­ed to be de­bat­ed dur­ing the next Pri­vate Mem­bers' Day in Sep­tem­ber.

"We anx­ious­ly await the UNC's re­sponse," Gon­za­les said.