Tobago West MP Dr Delmond Baker told the Senate Tuesday the leader of the People's National Movement (PNM) lacks morality and integrity because he associates himself with what Baker called "an administration (in Tobago) that is decidedly corrupt".
His outburst caused the President of the upper house, Timothy Hamel-Smith, to caution the MP that he was heading in the wrong direction. Baker offered an apology.
The matter arose during debate on the act to validate the Ninth EBC Report on the boundaries of the electoral districts in Tobago, which the Senate passed unanimously.
Baker noted that the opposition leader has tried to present himself as a person with the same morality and high integrity as former Prime Minister and retired President, Arthur N.R. Robinson. All three men are from Tobago.
Baker said Rowley is not in Robinson's league because Robinson walked out of the PNM when he had to deal with issues of corruption in the party. "The leader of the PNM stayed within the party. That is not integrity. That is not Tobagonian integrity," he said.
Baker and his colleague Vernella Alleyne-Toppin, MP for Tobago East, were elected as members of the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP), which is one of the members of the governing People's Partnership.
Baker promised that the new government would give Tobago the autonomy it has sought for the last 54 years and harshly criticised Rowley for suggesting that the People's Partnership is attempting invalidate the 2009 election.
The Minister for Tobago Development, Alleyne-Toppin, said constitutional reform for Tobago may include a change in the number of seats from 12 since the present arrangement could result in a tie as happened in the national election in Trinidad in 2001.
"As we move through the growth pole to stimulate the economy and empower communities, especially through land ownership, People's Partnership is moving to an area where constitutional reform may take us to a place where Tobago may be divided into more areas," she said.
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