Former President George Maxwell Richards says he sent Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley’s e-mails to the Integrity Commission for authentication after receiving them from Rowley last year. Speaking from his Maracas, St Joseph, home yesterday, Richards confirmed what Rowley and PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi had both said about the e-mails being sent to Richards six months ago, after they were slipped to Rowley by a whistle-blower. Richards demitted office in March.
Rowley, speaking about the e-mails in Parliament on Monday, said he passed them to the head of state and awaited a reply. He said he also had called on the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Integrity Commission to probe them and for a new Integrity Commission board to be appointed to probe the matter. The last board’s term ended on March 13.
Yesterday, Richards said Rowley indeed given him the e-mails months ago. He said: “I passed them on to the Integrity Commission, as those e-mails, on the face of it, needed authentication, so the most appropriate body to handle that independently would have been the Integrity Commission.” Richards said it was not done with any fuss, bother or publicity but as a matter of course.
He said it was done in complete confidence so that the commission would first check out the authenticity of the e-mails and carry out any appropriate investigation that may have been required. Richards added: “I want to make it abundantly clear that this was done in absolute confidence and secrecy.” He said he was enjoying his retirement, which he described as a “mixed blessing.”
Contacted yesterday, Integrity Commission communications officer Mervyn Crichlow said the commission would issue a statement on the status of the e-mails. On Tuesday, Al-Rawi said the PNM, after forwarding the e-mails, had been awaiting word on the issue. He noted a new Integrity Commission was yet to be sworn in.
On March 12, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was reported to have said she had asked Richards to allow the new commission to be appointed by then President-designate Anthony Carmona. The Prime Minister said she requested that because the commission’s term was expiring a few days before Richards’ own term ended and it would have been be more practical for Carmona, who was sworn in on March 18, to make the appointments. She said Richards had obliged.
Since Carmona’s appointment, one of his priority tasks has been trying to finalise the appointment of a new Integrity Commission board. Yesterday, T&T Guardian contacted President’s House to ask when a new board would be appointed. A statement from the presidency said the head of state was addressing the appointment of commission members “with diligence and gravitas, despite the heavy workload of President Carmona.
“A major challenge is the reluctance to serve by persons who have been tentatively approached,” it also said. An official said it was hoped the matter would be finalised some time next month. The official added a short list of names had been compiled but intense scrutiny of the individuals, including one-on-one interviews, were being done, adding that Carmona, as an attorney and former judge, was very “hands-on and is going over everything in this matter from top to bottom.”