[UPDATED] Ex-finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira resigns from PNM

FORMER finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira has resigned from the People’s National Movement (PNM) with immediate effect.

Nunez-Tesheira, who unsuccessfully challenged the Prime Minister for the leadership of the party in the December 4, 2022, internal election, said she has written to PNM general secretary Foster Cummings informing him of her decision. She added e-mails also were sent to media houses.

Saying she had been “thinking about it for some time,” Nunez-Tesheira said she wanted to offer the country “a different kind of leadership” when she contested the internal election.

She believes TT’s democracy, under the Dr Rowley-led PNM administration, is under threat.

Nunez-Tesheira told Newsday, “At the end of the day, when you take your oath without fear or favour, it is not for the party but it is for the country. So I came to the conclusion by a number of the actions taken by this government – which seems emboldened and almost brazen – that if we don’t stop them in their tracks, the country will find itself in a position where we will not be able to turn back the clock and, therefore, I do think our democracy is under threat, very, very much so.”

She likened the government’s treatment of the citizenry to “battered wife syndrome and moreso the effect it has on the recipient.”

Nunez-Tesheira added, “I think we have been subjected to a relentless, unabated assault to the point where… I think it is immortalised in the words of our Minister of Finance (Colm Imbert), “We ain’t riot yet.”

She claimed under Rowley’s leadership, crime and socio-economic inequalities have again come to the fore.

“I believe they have facilitated the current situation.”

Nunez-Tesheira said she joined the PNM in the late 1990s.

“I was active in the backroom doing my part.”

She later became a lifetime member in 2007 when joined the Cabinet as finance minister under former prime minister Patrick Manning. She served in that capacity until 2010 when the PNM lost the general election to the UNC-led People’s Partnership.

During her tenure in government, Nunez-Tesheira was also the Member of Parliament for D’Abadie/O’Meara.

She said the PNM, under Rowley, should not get another term in government.

“I resigned because if they are being so brazen and emboldened to treat the citizenry in the manner in which they are treating them in the last few years, if they get another term, we will have ourselves to blame.”

Nunez-Tesheira, an attorney, claimed the government has made series of blunders, some of which warranted the immediate removal of certain ministers. But she noted they have continued to function with impunity.

She cited the controversial Brent Thomas matter as an example. Thomas, a firearms dealer, was detained in Barbados and returned to Trinidad on a request by the police, last October, an action which a High Court judge described as an "abduction"

“We have had the Brent Thomas fiasco, where, up to now they cannot explain how an aeroplane from TT left our waters to go to Barbados without going through the required extradition laws and brought him back to Trinidad. I mean, it sounds as though he was abducted and there has been no explanation to the public.”

Nunez-Tesheira also questioned Attorney General Reginald Armour’s conduct in relation to the Piarco airport enquiry.

Armour had stated in his affidavit to the Miami court that he was a junior lawyer with senior silk Allan Alexander SC when they represented Brian Kuei Tung in criminal proceedings for fraud in TT.

Nunez-Tesheira said, “We have the current attorney general finding himself in the lower and upper courts of Miami effectively accusing him of perjury in his witness statement which he gave, which is equivalent to evidence in chief and nothing has been done about that. He is still in the office and he has not been in any way disciplined for that.”

She also claimed the government has been mum about the commission of enquiry into Paria diving tragedy, which was set up after four divers lost their lives while doing underwater maintenance work on a Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd pipeline on February 2022.

“How do you have a Paria enquiry that has been completed and yet the Government has said nothing about it?”

Nunez-Tesheira said she was also concerned that scanners at the Port of Port of Spain have not been working for some time.

“You have the acting Comptroller of Customs at the Joint Select Committee having to come out now and say for months the scanners and the Prime Minister is the head of the National Security Council. He did not know that?

“Guns and illegal drugs have been entering the country and you as the head of the National Security Council, we had to learn about that through a JSC. How do you explain that?”

Nunez-Tesheira, who made it clear she was “not supporting any other party in particular,” said, “What I am supporting is my country and I know that if this country does not get a chance to regroup, we are lost because all the signs are there.

“A woman who is battered and knows that she is being battered feels hopeless, helpless and after a while starts blaming herself and that is what has happened to TT under this current government. And it cannot continue.”

This story has been adjusted to include additional details. See original post below.

FORMER finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira has resigned from the People’s National Movement (PNM) with immediate effect.

Nunez-Tesheira, who unsuccessfully challenged the Prime Minister for the leadership of the party in the December 4, 2022, internal election, said she had written to PNM general secretary Foster Cummings informing him of her decision. She added e-mails also were sent to media houses.

Saying she had been “thinking about it for some time,” Nunez-Tesheira said she wanted to offer the country “a different kind of leadership” when she contested the internal election.

She believes Trinidad and Tobago’s democracy, under the Dr Rowley-led PNM administration is under threat.

Nunez-Tesheira told Newsday, “At the end of the day, when you take your oath without fear or favour, it is not for the party, but it is for the country.

"So I came to the conclusion by a number of the actions taken by this government – which seems emboldened and almost brazen – that if we don’t stop them in their tracks, the country will find itself in a position where we will not be able to turn back the clock. And, therefore, I do think our democracy is under threat, very, very much so.”

She likened the government's treatment of the citizenry to “battered wife syndrome and more so the effect it has on the recipient.”

Nunez-Tesheira added, “I think we have been subjected to a relentless, unabated assault to the point where…I think it is immortalised in the words of our Minister of Finance (Colm Imbert) –'We ain’t riot yet.'”