PNM rejects public financial disclosure amid Balisier House probe

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has no plans to make its fi­nan­cial state­ments pub­lic de­spite the on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain was fund­ed, par­ty chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has said.

Re­spond­ing to sug­ges­tions that the par­ty should re­lease its fi­nan­cial records in the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy, Gon­za­les ar­gued that the mat­ter falls with­in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal gov­er­nance.

“The par­ty’s fi­nan­cials is a mat­ter for the mem­ber­ship through the Gen­er­al Coun­cil in ac­cor­dance with its con­sti­tu­tion. No one will im­pose val­ues on the PNM that they don’t live by and that in­cludes the UNC,” he said.

Gon­za­les al­so de­fend­ed the par­ty’s fi­nan­cial re­port­ing, ex­plain­ing that state­ments were not pre­sent­ed to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil for sev­er­al months af­ter for­mer trea­sur­er Nal Ram­s­ingh re­signed in March.

He said the mat­ter was re­solved with the ap­point­ment of San Juan/Barataria Co­or­di­na­tor Robert Le Hunte as trea­sur­er ef­fec­tive June 1.

“Up­on his ap­point­ment, Mr Robert Le Hunte at our last Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing pre­sent­ed a com­pre­hen­sive fi­nan­cial re­port to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil. And we ex­pect, mov­ing for­ward, the is­sue of the pre­sen­ta­tion of fi­nan­cials will al­ways be on the agen­da now that we have in place a trea­sur­er,” Gon­za­les said.

Gon­za­les said the PNM has still not been served with any court or­der re­lat­ing to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but is pre­pared to re­spond once it re­ceives the doc­u­ments.

He al­so ques­tioned how de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­came pub­lic be­fore the par­ty was for­mal­ly no­ti­fied.

“I am very con­cerned that this mat­ter found its way in the pub­lic do­main be­fore the par­ty was served. And we have to ask our­selves, what is the po­lit­i­cal agen­da be­hind all of this? Who had ac­cess to that or­der? Who had ac­cess to the ap­pli­ca­tion? And why was it dis­closed to the me­dia be­fore the par­ty had sight of any or­der that af­fect­ed it?” Gon­za­les said.

He added: “It is very clear that this whole thing is taint­ed by pol­i­tics and dic­tat­ed by pol­i­tics. We will all be fools to be­lieve oth­er­wise.”

Gon­za­les said the par­ty’s le­gal team would ad­dress its con­cerns over the in­ves­ti­ga­tion “at the ap­pro­pri­ate time and in the ap­pro­pri­ate fo­rum.”

How­ev­er, the po­lice of­fi­cer lead­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the in­quiry has been in­flu­enced by pol­i­tics.

Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ram­dath Phillip, who heads both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Le­gal De­part­ment and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, told Guardian Me­dia he was un­aware of any at­tempt to in­ter­fere with the probe.

Phillip al­so dis­missed con­cerns that de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion en­tered the pub­lic do­main be­fore the PNM was for­mal­ly served with court doc­u­ments.

Ac­cord­ing to Phillip, the TTPS has sev­en days from the date the court or­der was grant­ed to serve the PNM. The or­der was grant­ed on Fri­day.

He said at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the State had al­ready con­tact­ed the PNM and were ar­rang­ing to serve the doc­u­ments.

Asked who ini­ti­at­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, where the com­plaint orig­i­nat­ed, and whether the in­quiry could be ex­pand­ed to in­clude oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties, Phillip de­clined to com­ment, say­ing he could not ad­dress those is­sues at this stage.