Thursday, January 19, 2012

Rowley wants SILK answers from Kamla

Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley is not giving up on the award of Senior Counsel (SILK) status to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

On Wednesday he told supporters he has filed a question for Persad-Bissessar to answer in Parliament on the matter.

He wants the Prime Minister to say:
  • When did you apply to the AG for the silk? 
  • Did the AG consult the CJ as was required? 
  • When did the AG send the list of recommended people to the PM for approval? Rowley wants answers for other questions too. 
He said he also wants Persad-Bissessar to say if she turned down anyone who was recommended for silk.

And he is probing even further into Persad-Bissessar's affairs by asking her to declare when was the last time she paid her legal dues to the Law Association.

Another sitting Prime Minister, Arthur N.R. Robinson, took silk while he was in office. However Rowley and the PNM have no issue with that.

The focus is on Persad-Bissessar and rowley is insisting that she is not qualified for the honour.

“What has happened is that the Prime Minister used the authority of her office to make herself senior counsel so when she lose office and she goes out she will charge a higher legal fee,” Rowley claimed at a PNM meeting in San Juan.

He also predicted that the People’s Partnership “will lose office the next time we go to the polls, and they don’t know how soon that will be, so they take in front in case they don’t last the full term.”

Rowley also said Caribbean Airlines sponsored a pundit to join the T&T delegation in India earlier this month.

“It has any place that has pundit like India? If the Prime Minister wants a pundit in India, just grab every third person you meet."

Rowley ignored that the fact that the "pundit" in this case is a member of the board of Caribbean Airlines (CAL). The chairman of the board told the media he approved the travel for the board member to sign certain bilateral agreements relating to the introduction of a direct air service to India.

Rowley also claimed that the travel for the board member and his wife cost a quarter million dollars. But a JYOTI reality check revealed that that figure, which was quioted by the Guardian newspaper, is grossly inflated.

Rowley also took issue of Persad-Bissessar for touching the feet of the Indian President while in that country recently. 

She did not actually touch the president's feet as is the custom among Hindus, to touch the feet of their elders. When she attempted to do it the President stopped her and hugged her instead.

Rowley attacked the Prime Minister for her religious beliefs and ethnic traditions.

"Nobody sent the PM abroad to represent her religion or her race. She went abroad to represent all the people of T&T and however she feels when she stands before a head of government she must stand there proud representing the people of T&T," Rowley said. "That is unacceptable."

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Jai & Sero

Jai & Sero

Our family at home in Toronto 2008

Our family at home in Toronto 2008
Amit, Heather, Fuzz, Aj, Jiv, Shiva, Rampa, Sero, Jai