Roget: Rowley’s comments the ranting of a desperate man

ON the heels of the Prime Minister’s criticism of the head of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) Ancel Roget, the union strongman retaliated, calling such remarks “the ranting of a desperate man.”

Speaking to reporters yesterday at the headquarters of the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union at Circular Road, San Fernando, Roget delivered a blistering attack on Dr Rowley and his administration.

“What the country witnessed on Sunday was the ranting of a desperate man. A desperate man because he is in a job which clearly the country recognises he is not qualified, competent or (has) experience for. He is not only desperate, he is deceitful, ungrateful and lazy,” Roget said.

Roget accused Rowley of trying to obfuscate and change the conversation, but vowed that the trade union federations would not allow that to happen and instead would continue to focus on the problems and issues at hand.

On Sunday, during the PNM’s Family and Sports Day at the Edinburgh 500 Recreation Grounds in Chaguanas, Rowley told supporters he had invited Roget for talks, but Roget refused. Roget preferred, Rowley said, to “stand on the pavement and shout.”

Yesterday Roget accused Rowley of “blatantly lying” and demanded official proof of such a request.

“I challenge him to tell me the date and time he had spoken and requested to meet with me. For us here, JTUM, the progressive labour movement in the country, we don’t want one cent to point out the ills in the country and point out the poor(ly) performing prime minister,” Roget said.

Roget said his salary as president general of OWTU was not $100,000, as suggested by Rowley on Sunday.

“I am a Petrotrin-Trinmar employee.

Petrotrin does not pay the position of the president general. My pay is consistent with what I would have earned had I been back at Petrotrin-Trinmar operations. I belong to the monthly paid bargaining unit, and nobody in that bargaining unit gets anything close to $100,000. That is another lie by Keith Rowley to try to perpetrate on the country to change the conversation,” Roget said.