PM Kamla puts Manning in his place; asks him about a house in San Fernando

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar went to Parliament Wednesday armed with all the evidence to prove that everything she did with respect to the construction of her private residence was above board. And she used the opportunity to put her predecessor, Patrick Manning, in his place.

She was responding to allegations made by the MP for San Fernando East last Friday suggesting that the Prime Minister had ulterior motives in bringing to Parliament a motion to end illegal wiretapping and that Persad-Bissessar's actions were connected to a close relationship with drug dealers.

"The Member for San Fernando East claimed, inter alia, with NO proof, NO evidence, NO justification and NO foreseeable sane rationale, that in my private capacity I constructed a house at Duncan Village which cost $150m dollars which was bigger than the official PMs residence," Persad-Bissessar told the House.

"Mr. Speaker, MPs on both sides of the House that evening were undoubtedly shocked that such scurrilous allegations could be made with absolutely no evidence, and more so by a man who it was assumed would know through experience and presumably integrity, the necessity and mandate of the Parliament for members to uphold the highest standards of integrity in their conduct and do the business of this house in accordance to the highest tenets of truth, ethics and morality," she added.

"I have said on record, Mr. Speaker, that I have nothing to hide in this matter and so today, I am here to put on the Hansard and public record the very details the Member for San Fernando East seeks about my private residence fully cognizant of the fact that a lie has spread, but Truth has endurance," she said.

She said Manning had "engaged in an excursion of malicious innuendo conjecture and character assassination against me, against my husband, my family and the government as a whole" and that since his utterances were made "outside these august Chambers" she has instructed her attorneys to issue a pre-action protocol letter against Manning for slander and libel.

"It was therefore most offensive and a further disservice to this Honourable House that the Member not only sought to abuse Parliamentary Privilege by repeating these falsehoods but embellish it with more false statements," she added.

Persad-Bissessar pointed out that Manning has made a habit of such behaviour. 

"This is not the first time that the Member for San Fernando East has made wild, malicious and vacuous allegations on my character in this Honourable House. It is a fact that every one of those allegations is false. Yet instead of apologising this Member continues to make even wilder more desperate and delusional statements," she said.

She noted that Manning's actions were a deliberate and calculated attempt by the entire Opposition to divert national attention "from the frightening display of abuse of democracy perpetrated by his regime and under his instruction against the people of this country" by the Manning administration.

She said it is sad that the opposition supports Manning as he engaged in the violation of "the highest traditions of Westminster".

Persad-Bissessar provided the House with all the documentation to prove that she and her husband own the property, that everything was done with the proper approvals and also produced evidence showing that all the utilities were properly connected. 

She added that all the material was also declared to the proper authorities under provisions of the Integrity bill and that the value of the property as declared to the Integrity Commission in 2009 was $2.9 million.

"To suggest that this house cost $150m is delusional. This would mean it cost a whopping $15,000 per sq foot which is impossible," she said.

"An independent construction assessment commissioned by my husband, Dr. Gregory Bissessar, from the reputable, longstanding quantity surveyor, Mr. Willie Roopchan, states that the cost for completing the house, by June 2011 is estimated to be between $3.4 million and $4.05 million.

"This is a mere 2 per cent of the estimated $150 million cited by the Member for San Fernando East," she said.

Persad-Bissessar said the house is not bigger that the official residence of the Prime Minister. However she said his uninformed accusations explain something important. "Indeed we can now understand why the Member for San Fernando East wasted the patrimony of our country," she said.

Persad-Bissessar reiterated that she has never had anything to hide. "I have never had a problem providing any kind of information to the public about my life. I have often said my life is an open book. Humility, you see, is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying," she told the House.

She said as the country's leader she is fully aware that she not only has to do the right thing but also to be perceived to be doing the right thing.

"A consequence of strong leadership is being put under intense public scrutiny, being held to high standards, and enhancing a reputation that is constantly under threat.

"You cannot choose your battlefield, God does that for you; but you can plant a standard where a standard never flew.

"Therefore I had no problem whatsoever putting these facts about my life in the public domain," she said.

She said the "falsehoods perpetrated against me by the Member for San Fernando East" were "cheap politicking to salvage a ruined, destroyed political career and public image."

She added, "Desperate, unethical men lie when they are afraid...of what, honest men and women will never know.

"Maybe they are afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about them. But every time they tell a lie, the thing that they fear grows stronger.

"If it is that they tell lies to distract from good governance, proper democracy and a country restored to its path of progress and prosperity under the People’s partnership Government, then let me warn them, this Government of integrity and truth will only grow stronger," the Prime Minister said.

She thanked her political colleagues and her constituents for their ongoing support and went to Shakespeare to deal with Manning. “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man”.

She told him, "Remember, you do not wake up one morning a bad person. It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders of self-respect to self-interest.

"This then is the truth. May it now set you free from the misery of self deceit and self destructive path you’ve now found yourself condemned to walk."

She chastised Manning for his actions. "When you put up pictures of my private residence for the newspapers to print on their front pages and the whole world to see...you willingly and wantonly endangered my children's safety and lives by that act, something I will never do to you. 

"I will not respond by endangering your children's safety. Instead I wish God's richest blessings and prosperity and safety for your own children.  

"But just like you held up the pictures of my home, I call on you now to hold up the pictures of the house in Herreira Street, St Joseph Village and tell us who resides there." (Read the PM's full statement)

The House on Herreria Street, St Joseph Village, San Fernando. Neighbours say it is owned by Manning's son and that Manning made frequent visits there while Chinese workers were refurbishing the house.