Charles: Dr. Rowley where is the OAS report promised in Parliament. Who are you protecting? Dennis Moses?

Mr. Rodney Charles
Member of Parliament
Naparima

In Parliament on May 10th Dr Rowley announced that Ambassador Christopher Thomas’ OAS report giving reasons why Trinidad and Tobago objected to a plea from Dominica for a two-year waiver of its fee at the OAS was completed.

Rowley stated further that “persons who hold office in this country were implicated” and that the report would be released to Parliament “as soon as it is appropriate” through the Standing Committee on Foreign Policy.

More than one month has passed and we have heard nothing further.

Could it be that Prime Minister Rowley is once again at his game by keeping the population out of the loop regarding important matters of State, hoping that the country would forget and he could continue on his rampage of bad governance.

The fact that he is tardy in the publicising of this information makes us wonder who the top officials are. Could it include Dennis Moses or somebody else?

This government is very slothful in making public findings of various reports.

In Senate this week Senator Wade Mark drew to the country’s attention that the report on the inquiry into former Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Darryl Smith is still outstanding. On April 10th Rowley appointed a committee to investigate the matter and anticipated the receipt of the report sometime after Indian Arrival Day and Corpus Christi holiday. Again, we have since heard nothing further and the findings of the report remain a state secret.

In September 2017 Dr Rowley received the report compiled by sole investigator Christian Mouttet on the sea bridge fiasco involving the Cabo Star and Ocean Flower 2, but delayed commenting on the matter until he went before a JSC. We are still not clear whether that report has yet been officially released.

It will be recalled that T&T was regionally and internationally embarrassed for voting against Dominica’s request to waive its OAS membership fees in March.

This was one more instance of Dennis Moses’ mismanagement of this country’s Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, and was roundly condemned by the media, NGOs and members of the regional diplomatic community.

Dr Rowley sought to lay the blame at the feet of public servants and vindicate Moses. He then called for a report to determine culpability for the fiasco.

Why the delay in releasing the findings to the public? Does a JSC investigation into the matter need to be launched in order for the public to obtain this apparently top secret information? When will the JSC meet?

Is secrecy now a virtue and, in the PNM’s thinking, consistent with principles of good governance?

We call on Dr Rowley to stop playing games and cease dancing around a definitive date for the report to be released so that citizens will know, once and for all, what transpired in the run up to our vote at the OAS and who caused the fiasco.

Rodney Charles
MP for Naparima