PNM prepares for fight to save its reputation

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) says it has noth­ing to hide and is prepar­ing to fight what it de­scribes as an at­tempt to tar­nish the par­ty’s rep­u­ta­tion in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the source of funds used to ren­o­vate its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters.

In a post yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said the par­ty would de­fend its rep­u­ta­tion, de­scrib­ing the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion as an at­tempt by Gov­ern­ment to vil­i­fy the PNM.

“As po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, I as­sure our mem­bers that the PNM has noth­ing to hide, and we will fight res­olute­ly and re­lent­less­ly against any at­tempt by the UNC to vil­i­fy this great move­ment that has served this na­tion with dis­tinc­tion for 70 years,” Beck­les said.

“Bal­isi­er House is not mere­ly a build­ing; it rep­re­sents the soul of the PNM and the blood, sweat, and tears of gen­er­a­tions of cit­i­zens who have con­tributed to this move­ment. It rep­re­sents vol­un­teers, sup­port­ers, work­ers, and pa­tri­ots who have giv­en their time and re­sources be­cause they be­lieve in ser­vice to coun­try. Un­der my watch, the PNM will not sit idly by while oth­ers at­tempt to erase these con­tri­bu­tions from the po­lit­i­cal and phys­i­cal land­scape.”

Beck­les al­so ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of fo­cus­ing on at­tack­ing her par­ty rather than prob­lems af­fect­ing cit­i­zens. How­ev­er, she said at­tacks would not faze the par­ty.

“The PNM has sur­vived 70 years of chal­lenges; we have faced crit­i­cism and en­dured po­lit­i­cal at­tacks; and every time, we have emerged stronger be­cause our foun­da­tion is built on peo­ple, prin­ci­ples, and ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Beck­les added.

“As leader of the PNM, I will con­tin­ue to de­fend our par­ty, our democ­ra­cy and the right of cit­i­zens to have a strong Op­po­si­tion that holds Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able. No amount of ma­li­cious dis­trac­tion can mask the re­al­i­ty, the UNC is a failed Gov­ern­ment on a witch hunt, des­per­ate to cling to the po­lit­i­cal pow­er that has al­ready slipped from their hands.”

Her re­sponse comes af­ter the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed the High Court grant­ed a pre­lim­i­nary un­ex­plained wealth or­der, un­der sec­tion 58(1) of the Civ­il As­set Re­cov­ery and Man­age­ment and Un­ex­plained Wealth Act, against the PNM and its trustees.

A pre­lim­i­nary un­ex­plained wealth or­der is an in­ter­im mea­sure grant­ed by the court and does not rep­re­sent a fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion of li­a­bil­i­ty or wrong­do­ing.

Mean­while, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith ques­tioned the de­ci­sion to pub­licly dis­close de­tails sur­round­ing the mat­ter, while po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should not be viewed as po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.

Grif­fith said sen­si­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions should be han­dled care­ful­ly and warned that pub­lic dis­cus­sion could com­pro­mise the process.

“If there’s some­thing of this mag­ni­tude and so sen­si­tive, why bring it out to the pub­lic? Why both­er to say it at this time?” he asked.

“If I was Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and it is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, it should be on a need-to-know ba­sis. The more you speak about it, the more, if it is that there’s some de­gree of ques­tion­able ac­tiv­i­ty, it is al­low­ing the in­di­vid­u­als to cov­er their tracks. So, I would think at this time, this is a mat­ter that has to be, has to re­main sen­si­tive.”

Grif­fith al­so urged politi­cians to al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors to com­plete their work with­out in­ter­fer­ence.

“The more the politi­cians say about it, the greater the pos­si­bil­i­ty that this mat­ter can now be to­tal­ly col­lapsed be­cause what you’re do­ing is ba­si­cal­ly tip­ping off per­sons or have per­sons now state that, ‘Oh, this was some type of po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion and I was be­ing tar­get­ed.’ So, I will strong­ly urge those per­sons in gov­ern­ment at this time, say very lit­tle, let the po­lice do the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

He ex­plained that the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) does not have the au­thor­i­ty to in­de­pen­dent­ly in­ves­ti­gate the ac­counts of po­lit­i­cal par­ties with­out in­for­ma­tion be­ing pro­vid­ed by agen­cies such as the po­lice, the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency or whistle­blow­ers.

He said po­lice, how­ev­er, have pow­ers un­der un­ex­plained wealth leg­is­la­tion if in­tel­li­gence gath­ered can be turned in­to ev­i­dence.

Grif­fith al­so crit­i­cised calls by PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les for cam­paign fi­nance re­form, de­scrib­ing them as “com­i­cal,” though he main­tained that cam­paign do­na­tions them­selves are not un­law­ful.

“Every op­po­si­tion par­ty will speak cam­paign fi­nanc­ing, but then when you get in gov­ern­ment and the sev­en- fig­ure cheques start rolling in­to your ac­count, you don’t want to speak about cam­paign fi­nanc­ing. It ain’t go­ing to hap­pen. We’ve seen it for decades.”

Mean­while, speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Dr Ram­per­sad said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should not be in­ter­pret­ed as po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.

“I don’t think this is po­lit­i­cal. I think this is just a part of the pol­i­tics. This is the na­ture of the pol­i­tics. We prac­tice a West­min­ster ad­ver­sar­i­al style of gov­er­nance. They are al­ways at each oth­er’s throats.”

How­ev­er, she said the con­tro­ver­sy high­lights the need for cam­paign fi­nance re­form, ar­gu­ing that greater trans­paren­cy is need­ed around po­lit­i­cal do­na­tions and fund­ing.

“The big­ger con­cern, like I said, the out­come of all of this is the pound of flesh. It’s the pound of flesh re­quests that come af­ter. Be­cause we see peo­ple as­sum­ing po­si­tions, you know, we won­der their qual­i­fi­ca­tion, we won­der their ex­pe­ri­ence. And you won­der, you know, how they got what they got,” she said.

“We need to get se­ri­ous. Be­cause this leg­is­la­tion, this kind of leg­is­la­tion which the big­ger coun­tries have brought—the Unit­ed King­dom, the Unit­ed States and Cana­da—it speaks to trans­paren­cy. It speaks to in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life. It speaks to democ­ra­cy. Be­cause you’re shar­ing the in­for­ma­tion with the peo­ple. The peo­ple have a right to know. And ul­ti­mate­ly, it speaks to who gets the shares in the na­tion­al pie, who ben­e­fits.”

Bal­isi­er House re­de­vel­op­ment

Work on the re­de­vel­op­ment of the PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters be­gan af­ter the sod was turned on Au­gust 30, 2018. The up­grad­ed com­plex was of­fi­cial­ly opened on Jan­u­ary 27, 2024.

When the project was launched, par­ty of­fi­cials said it would be fi­nanced through fundrais­ing and pub­licly es­ti­mat­ed the cost at be­tween TT$12.5 mil­lion and TT$50 mil­lion. How­ev­er, es­ti­mates of the project’s val­ue have since var­ied wide­ly.

A po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion now re­lies, in part, on an in­de­pen­dent cost as­sess­ment com­mis­sioned by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al which, ac­cord­ing to a news­pa­per re­port, es­ti­mates the com­plet­ed five-storey build­ing could cost about TT$118.4 mil­lion, with rough­ly TT$73.3 mil­lion in con­struc­tion al­ready com­plet­ed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­am­in­ing whether com­pa­nies or in­di­vid­u­als who re­ceived State con­tracts while the PNM was in gov­ern­ment be­tween 2015 and 2025 im­prop­er­ly con­tributed to the project in re­turn for favourable treat­ment.