Rowley’s diminishing credibility

Dr Keith Rowley

The Editor: No one can deny that the political landscape of Trinidad and Tobago has been experiencing some significant paradigm shifts within recent times. The old order is crumbling as the people continue to reject tyranny, corruption and indifference.

We, the people, demand nothing short of stellar representation from the government as much as we do from the opposition.

In a newspaper editorial earlier this year, several issues were raised concerning the “worrisome attitude” of the Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley as it relates to his flippant attitude towards facts and the truth.

If one were to look at his statements since ascending to the office of the Opposition Leader, we would observe the barrage of misinformation and misrepresentation of even simple facts in the public domain.

Much of Dr Rowley’s wild and unfounded allegations however, are clearly targeted at the Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, for whom he seems to hold a particular grudge.

To date, the Opposition Leader has levied a host of unwarranted claims against Mr Ramlogan such as using the Financial Intelligence Unit to attain records of private citizens, sending state briefs to a select elite group of lawyers, misleading the public on the OPV/BAE arbitration and making racist statements about the TT UN Mission.

All of these accusations have been strongly condemned and much evidence has been put forward that proves them to be complete fabrications.

Dr Rowley’s single-minded resolve in tarnishing the reputation of the Prime Minister and the Attorney General at any cost hit critical mass when he unveiled in Parliament a supposed plot to murder and subvert the course of justice, all of which were contained in a rather poorly fabricated email thread.

Experts both locally and abroad have since declared these emails embarrassingly bereft of any credibility.

Just recently Dr Rowley insinuated that the government was to blame for the CPO/Presidential housing allowance scandal, even though public commentators suggest that the Salaries Review Commission and the office of the Chief Personnel Officer are the ones to answer for this issue.

It is unfortunate that Dr Rowley clearly did not learn from these serious gaffes despite being hauled to the privileges committee in Parliament in addition to receiving a bevy of pre-action protocol letters for these slanderous and unjust allegations.

As a concerned citizen of this beautiful twin island republic, I would like to inform Dr Rowley that his role in ensuring good governance, accountability and transparency does not begin upon assuming the position of Prime Minister.

As Leader of both the Opposition and the People’s National Movement, he must hold himself to a much higher standard and therefore lead by example.

We cannot tolerate public officials seeking political expediency by holding the concepts of truth, justice and fairness to ransom.

We deserve better, Dr Rowley.

Jevan De Coteau
Arima

NEWSDAY