PM: We know who the thieves are

THE Prime Minister says the Government knows everyone who was involved in corruption under its PP predecessor.

At a PNM public meeting on Thursday night at the Unit Trust car park in Sangre Grande, Dr Rowley said, "Let them not for one minute believe that we don't know them."

He added, "I could whistle all them name. But leave them to the police."

Rowley said while the wheels of justice turn very slowly, "They do turn."

He declared, "There is going to be a reckoning and a retribution, if not for all of them, but at least for some of them at the appropriate time."

While the Government knows who the offenders are, Rowley said, "We have to stay very quiet and let the criminal law take its course."

Should Government say too much, Rowley said, these people will "jump and play victim" and run to their lawyer friends.

Using different sizes of boxes to show  different amounts of money he said had been stolen, Rowley said after five years, the UNC had paid $1.4 billion of taxpayers’ money had been paid to a small handful of lawyers. He claimed this could only happen if people forgot about the public interest and "gave enrichment to a select few."

He continued: "You will understand why there are so many lawyers in this country who are so anti-PNM and so anti- this government."

The PNM did not care about that, he said,  but "We will tell you how they thief your money."

He quipped, "No other profession in this country ever got that largesse."

Thanks to this small handful of lawyers, Rowley said, the legal profession is no longer an honourable one.

"Set of blasted scamps, most of them," he scoffed.

In the last year of the Patrick Manning administration, in 2010, Rowley said, only $20 million was spent on external lawyers.

Dismissing Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar's corruption claims against Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, Rowley disclosed that while the PNM was in opposition, a PP minister refused to give a $3 million cheque to a businessman unless that minister was given $2 million. Rowley said he advised Sinanan to tell the businessman to give the money to the minister, then report the matter to the police.

He claimed  the businessman said if he did that, "I not going to get no  more work."

Saying the Curepe Interchange was being built for $221 million instead of the $540 million planned under the PP, Rowley said Persad-Bissessar must tell the public  "who in the (PP) cabal was going to get $300 million."  He claimed the PP hid money throughout the country by digging holes and putting money in plastic barrels in those holes.

After five years in office, Rowley said, Persad-Bissessar has not told the population why the PP removed a clause in the contract with Brazilian contractor Construtora OAS, which allowed it to take $921 million out of TT when it declared bankruptcy.

Thanks to the legal efforts of National Security Minister Stuart Young,  he said, that money was recovered and used to hire several contractors to build the Solomon Hochoy Highway project. Referring to Sinanan's earlier contribution at the meeting, Rowley said a Carib bottle case can hold $1 million. He took out his wallet and said, "I am not hear talking about filling a wallet with money," but " a truckload.” He charged that the UNC had been raiding the country in floods, not  raindrops.