Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley will be interviewed today, May 28, by Deputy Commissioner of Police Mervyn Richardson. Making the disclosure at his bi-weekly news conference at Opposition House on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yesterday Rowley said his office had received communication from Richardson indicating he would like to interview the Opposition Leader. “I indicated I would be available to speak to him tomorrow,” Rowley said. The interview is part of a police investigation, headed by Richardson, into the controversial e-mails which Rowley read in Parliament implicating Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and Local Government Minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan in possible corruption and conspiracy.
Rowley, in reading out the e-mails, reportedly obtained by a whistleblower, had said they were sent to him six months ago. From indications, however, it does not appear Richardson will get anything new from the Opposition Leader. “I am keen to find out what Richardson wants to talk to me about. I have said all there is to say in Parliament,” Rowley told the media. He repeated his lack of confidence in Richardson which stemmed, he claimed, from the Deputy Commissioner’s co-operation with the Government in the alleged 2011 plot to assassinate the PM, for which no evidence was found. The police investigation into the e-mails follows a request from the PM that they should investigate their authenticity. Asked if he was secure the information in the e-mails was valid, Rowley said, “I am not secure. If I was, I would have demanded at the very outset the resignation of the Government.”
He said he exposed the e-mails because they contained certain elements that seemed to corroborate facts already in existence. Noting he is “quite prepared to assist any officer in his investigation,” Rowley drew attention to acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams’ reported recent statement that the investigation would progress according to the availability of people for interviews. “I am disturbed that office-holders may not be available for interviews,” Rowley said. “The investigation should be dispensed with quickly.” Rowley repeated his conviction that the Integrity Commission has the power to hire investigators and conduct unimpeded investigations into those in public life. The Integrity Commission was set up to regulate the conduct of people exercising public functions through the receipt of declarations of income, assets and liabilities.
Asked about this by a reporter, Rowley told him the question showed he was not familiar with Section V of the Integrity in Public Life Act, which gives the commission the power to investigate violations or suspected violation in all its forms. Rowley said some members of the media seem influenced by the Government’s line of thought that a police investigation and an Integrity Commission investigation were the same thing. “The Government is mortally afraid the investigation could go where the flow is. That’s why they are attempting to mislead you about the powers of the Integrity Commission.” He said the commission, “more than office-holders beholden to the Government”, had the powers to get the required independent skills to investigate the e-mails. The term of the commission’s board ended on March 14 and there is no board at present. Only a chairman, Kenneth Gordon, is in place.
Rowley said without a quorum, the commission cannot initiate an investigation. He said Ramlogan, answering a question in Parliament earlier this month on the $40 million paid to an “A-Team” of attorneys, said the Anti-Corruption Bureau was still investigating the Landate matter involving Rowley. “This was news to me. Ten years have passed and no police officer has ever interviewed me or my wife.” Charging the Government is “always bringing up the Landate matter for political mileage,” Rowley called on Williams to say what he knew about the investigation. The Landate matter involved the allegation that materials were siphoned from the Scarborough Hospital project to the private Landate housing project owned by Rowley’s wife, Sharon.