Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday admitted to becoming stressed out after reading the reports of Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Honore-Paul criticism of her over the Emailgate probe.
She made the admission during a Mother’s Day function at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s.
The PM initially began by recalling to the gathering “all the good times and memories” she had as a child growing up. She then recalled a personal incident with her grandson, who had told his aunt that he was stressed.
After the narration about the incident, however, Persad-Bissessar then said: “But I woke up this morning I was like my grandson, I am stressed. I open the newspaper (and) I am stressed.”
Persad-Bissessar said, however, that she opened a new school in Maraval hours before and after her stressful morning, “the day has turned out so wonderfully well.”
Persad-Bissessar did not specify what story or stories stressed her out, but the T&T Guardian’s front page story had the headline “Deputy DPP slams PM for Emailgate claims - No one cleared.”
That story indicated that despite claims to the contrary by Persad-Bissessar in an interview in Parliament and at a public meeting of the UNC in Diego Martin in the past few days, Honore-Paul said in a statement that neither the PM nor former attorney general Anand Ramlogan had been cleared and the case was still wide open and being investigated by the police.
The police and Integrity Commission are still investigating the allegation by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley in May 2013 about a plot to murder a T&T Guardian journalist and also to bug the Office of the DPP following a story about the early proclamation of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) bill.
During a no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister, Rowley had told the Parliament that the emails were allegedly sent from addresses belonging to Persad-Bissessar, Ramlogan and other senior Cabinet ministers and Government officials, including the PM’s then national security adviser Gary Griffith.
The PM and her colleagues denied the allegation and Persad-Bissessar called on acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams to launch a probe.
Last week, Leader of Government Business in the House, Housing and Urban Development Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal, said the Government was in possession of information from the US Department of Justice indicating that the emails were fake. Persad-Bissessar also subsequently said Rowley was suspended from Parliament last week in order to clear her and her colleagues’ names as the Parliament is to be dissolved next month.
But Honore-Paul said on Wednesday it would be misleading to suggest anyone had been cleared in the matter.
“While it is true, that after receipt of the information from the Department of Justice, the police team led by Superintendent Baldeo Nanan did send a report to Deputy Commissioner of Police Glen Hackett, it is not true that such report cleared Mr Anand Ramlogan and Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar in respect of this investigation,” Honore-Paul said.
Roundtable gathering
Persad-Bissessar also commented on Wednesday’s roundtable meeting in Port-of-Spain involving trade union leaders, former prime minister Basdeo Panday and others.
“Recently I saw a lot of men all ganged up and sitting at a roundtable. I saw all these men and their one aim was to get Kamla out,” she said.
“I want to tell you ... we women are very strong and with my strength and your support I will be the woman left standing.”
She said she would like to make sure she was not the first and last woman to head a government in this country.
She told the mothers and grandmothers in the audience that her Government was committed to regularising thousands of squatters across the country and that she was working hard to take care of all the children in the nation. She said she will also “champion the issues of gender equity because women who are mothers can at times become our greatest teachers.”
Persad-Bissessar said: “The denial of fundamental human rights on the basis of gender has absolutely no place.”
Roundtable gathering
Persad-Bissessar also commented on Wednesday’s roundtable meeting in Port-of-Spain involving trade union leaders, former prime minister Basdeo Panday and others.
“Recently I saw a lot of men all ganged up and sitting at a roundtable. I saw all these men and their one aim was to get Kamla out,” she said.
“I want to tell you ... we women are very strong and with my strength and your support I will be the woman left standing.”
She said she would like to make sure she was not the first and last woman to head a government in this country.
She told the mothers and grandmothers in the audience that her Government was committed to regularising thousands of squatters across the country and that she was working hard to take care of all the children in the nation. She said she will also “champion the issues of gender equity because women who are mothers can at times become our greatest teachers.”
Persad-Bissessar said: “The denial of fundamental human rights on the basis of gender has absolutely no place.”