People’s National Movement (PNM) San Fernando West candidate Faris Al-Rawi says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s accusations that he used his senate position in a client’s interest during his contribution to a recent parliamentary debate is a “storm in a teacup” aimed at removing a potential winner from the San Fernando West candidacy.
“There’s no conflict of interest, so bring it on Madame Prime Minister. If this is the best you can do to raise a storm in a teacup, then you have to come a lot better,” he said at a media briefing in a parliamentary committee room while Senate was in session yesterday, in response to the PM’s call on Monday night for the PNM to remove him as a senator and from the candidacy.
Al-Rawi was supported by PNM colleague Stuart Young, who said the bill under debate last week—where Al-Rawi was alleged to have used his Senate influence—could not have assisted Al-Rawi’s client. He added that the PM’s statements were a non-issue and “we should move on from here...”
The two men said PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley told them the PM’s statement was “ole talk, a distraction and non-issue” and instructed them to “put an end to this conversation” and get out and do the PNM’s work.
Al-Rawi said he had stepped aside in the Section 34 matter in the event “some bright fool got it into their minds” to pursue his role as witness/attorney, and thus he’d spared the PNM any encumbrance in that matter. But he said with this out of the way it was now clear the PM was attacking him.
He said parliamentary process debarred advocacy in matters that could give one’s clients an advantage or engineer a particular result for them, and one had to declare one’s interest and consider the relevance of the issue. He said he had followed the rules and didn’t consider the bill was relevant or that its debate would have affected any of his several clients.
Saying he was a “high value political target,” Al-Rawi added, “She cannot find a San Fernando West candidate to run against me. There are slim pickings in San Fernando West and obviously they’re in trouble and she seeks to attack ...
“As PNM’s PRO responsible for laying the government’s ills at their feet, it’s only reasonable she’d want to return fire ... (but) her allegations don’t hold water, it’s a non-issue, she’s simply trying to remove me and focus T&T away from the real issues.”
He called on the PM to examine alleged conflict of interest in giving Caroni land to “your main financier SIS,” with the former attorney general giving legal briefs to certain lawyers and Vasant Bharath “facing a criminal probe” on the David West issue.
On the PM’s accusation that the PNM was a “Big People party,” he and Young said she should “stop flying in helicopters, move out of her Philippine mansion, turn off the flashing blue lights, stop wearing Louis Vuitton track shoes and see how people are living on the Marabella Trainline and Port-of-Spain North.”
While both spoke outside the Chamber, inside, Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine was alluding to Al-Rawi during debate on a motion. Ramnarine noted TTEC’s advertisement on the matter, including losses it would have incurred if it had to accept statements which were being proposed in the Senate last week. He said the ad focused specifically on statements made by Al-Rawi.
Ramnarine said the PM had gone to great pains at the UNC’s Monday meeting to stress that her Government would not tolerate conflict of interest and that people’s interest should be declared as May’s Parliamentary Practice dictates. He said Government wasn’t prepared to have this cloaked in parliamentary privilege to further the interests of parliamentarians’ clients. (See page A6)