UNC deputy leader Dr Roodal Moonilal has challenged PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley to say who paid for his overseas trips this year, claiming there were 15 trips and he has information on that. He made the call yesterday after PNM general secretary Ashton Ford said the UNC must be asked when it was having internal elections and if it held executive meetings, instead of calling for the PNM to say who paid for its convention at the Hyatt.
Ford responded after Moonilal said the PNM, as an alternative government, should, in the interest of transparency, say who paid for the Hyatt for its convention last weekend. Moonilal claimed the Government was aware a prominent businessman did so and wanted five ministerial appointments in return. This drew several PNM protestations, including Ford’s, but PNMites declined to say who paid for the Hyatt venue.
Yesterday UNC chairman Kadijah Ameen said the PNM should see to its own lingering issues after its May internal election, instead of “hounding” the UNC about internal polls, since the UNC’s executive, constituency and women’s arm elections were held on time. She said the only UNC election outstanding was for party leader and currently there was no challenge to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s leadership.
There could be no rush to that election, she said, as the UNC’s constitutional reform process had to be completed first because its proposals were critical to positioning UNC for the present political climate Moonilal claimed: “I will like Dr Rowley to say who paid for his 15 trips overseas this year, which he has not denied, and if he won’t say, I am prepared to say who has been paying.
“My information is he has sold out the Opposition which is now controlled by a single financier who is demanding more than his pound of flesh. “This is why PNM meetings for the big guns of the party won’t be held at Balisier House.”
He added: “I found PNM chairman Franklin Khan’s view that the Hyatt was best for their meeting, as it was an ‘intellectual one,’ quite shocking and insulting to the memory of PNM founder Dr Eric Williams and former leader Patrick Manning, who held many intellectual symposia at PNM’s Balisier House and the Chaguaramas Convention Centre.” Moonilal said the PNM’s action showed it viewed Balisier House as “for the plebs.”
He added: “They will also be putting their members in the hot Queen’s Park Savannah for the next convention leg but they think the air-conditioned Hyatt is for intellectuals.”