Smith sex allegations damning

Princes Town MP Barry Padarath.
Princes Town MP Barry Padarath.

PRINCES Town MP Barry Padarath says details revealed over the allegations of sexual harassment by Sport Minister Minister Darryl Smith in a recent newspaper story were both “damning and damaging” and Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi is allegedly part of a cover up of the incident.

Padarath in a release commented on a newspaper front page story of April 8 with the headline “Darryl Exposed” about a witness statement reported from Smith’s former personal secretary alleging sexual harassment against the sports minister. He said that the contents of the article appears to put Smith at the center of the allegations of sexual harassment “and no amount of deflection or claim of ignorance from the Government could change that.” He added that in the public interest the Prime Minister must act swiftly to remove both Minister Smith and the Attorney General if public confidence is to be retained in the offices that are occupied by both Smith and Al-Rawi. Padarath recalled in response to a series of questions posed on the matter to the sport minister in Parliament last week, Al Rawi instead answered for him.

“It is now public knowledge that the office of the Attorney General assisted in brokering the terms and conditions for the ‘sex suit.’ It is alleged that the Attorney General is now named as an accessory to an alleged cover up of such a serious claim.”

Padarath said the role of the Attorney General in this matter also comes into question.

“As one of the custodians of the constitution, the Attorney General has become a party to this matter by using legal tactics in an alleged conspiracy to exonerate and clean up a claim brought against a cabinet colleague. Further, the Attorney General must have known by the documentation provided by the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs that Minister Smith was at the center of the allegations. Did the Attorney General purposely and wilfully conceal this information from the cabinet and the Prime Minister in expending taxpayers dollars for an alleged ‘sex suit.’ Did the Attorney General abdicate his responsibility to the state and willfully mislead the population on this matter?”

Padarath also slammed the Prime Minister, who commented on the issue at the post-Cabinet media briefing last week, for his “flippant approach” to such a serious matter that deals with the rights of women and the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.

He called on the Prime Minister to take decisive and swift action on both Smith and Al-Rawi by relieving them of their portfolios with immediate effect.

“To do otherwise would give the impression that despite all the damaging and damning information in the public domain, that the Government sees sexual exploitation as a non-story.”

At the media briefing Rowley said he first heard about the issue in Parliament and he would not want to pronounce on it without knowing exactly what the details were. Contacted yesterday Al-Rawi declined to comment on the issue, and three attempts to contact Smith by telephone were unsuccesful.

In a separate release Couva North MP Ramona Ramdial also called for Smith to be fired. She said he had been heavily defended by members of the PNM government against allegations of sexual harassment toward a former employee of his ministry.

She pointed out that Planning Minister, Leader of Government Business and PNM Women’s League Chairman Camille Robinson-Regis dismissed the issue of $150,000 of taxpayers’ money being used by the sport ministry to settle the wrongful termination/sexual harassment lawsuit as a “non-story”.

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