Thursday, April 24 2008

AFTER JUST over four months as the Minister of Trade, Diego Martin West MP Keith Rowley was yesterday fired from his post by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, bringing to a head a strained relationship between the two men which surfaced when Rowley challenged Manning for leadership of the PNM in 1996 after the PNM lost the 1995 election to a UNC/NAR coalition.

A press release faxed by Whitehall at 5.04 pm yesterday in three sentences announced the end of Rowley’s current Cabinet role.

“Prime Minister Patrick Manning today advised His Excellency President George Maxwell Richards to revoke the appointment of Dr Keith Rowley as Minister of Trade and Industry with effect from today.

“Dr Lenny Saith has been appointed as the new Minister of Trade and Industry in place of Dr Rowley.”

No reason for the dismissal was given in the statement, which added, “continuity is assured.”

The sudden development publicly exposed the bad blood between the two men ever since Rowley unsuccessfully challenged Manning for PNM leader at the party’s annual convention in 1996 when Rowley won 47 percent of PNM support for political leader .

On January 7, 1996, Rowley, a then deputy political leader, called for Manning to resign as party head in light of the party’s defeat at the 1995 general election. When Manning refused, Rowley resigned alongside Wendell Mottley and Augustus Ramkersingh on January 5, 1996.

On October 13 later that year Rowley challenged Manning for the post of PNM political leader but lost, being routed 279 votes to Manning’s 438 votes.

Later, Rowley would tell the press that he would do it all over again, hinting that the animosity between the two men had not healed.

The animosity went underground until July 2001 when Rowley launched a stinging criticism of Manning once more, calling him an “obstacle in caucus protecting the (then) UNC Government”. Manning would weather the storm and later become the Prime Minister after the collapse of the UNC administration.

On October 14 2004, UNC MPs alleged that Rowley, then Housing Minister, transferred labour and materials from the Scarborough Regional Hospital to his wife’s Landate, Mason Hall housing development.

Manning, now Prime Minister, on October 20 that year announced in Parliament that the matter was to be referred to the Integrity Commission.

Four years later, after the initiation of a civil action lawsuit as well as countless manoeuvres between the commission, the Office of the Prime Minister and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Registrar of the Commission would clear Rowley of any wrongdoing by letter dated February 1, 2008.

High Court judge Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee in March this year reserved judgment in Rowley’s suit against the commission, a suit the IC has already conceded.

To date it has never been explained why the commission wrote Manning on October 19, 2004, signalling its intention to investigate Rowley.

The commission would later admit that it “rushed” the probe and forward the file to the DPP without giving Rowley a chance to defend himself. Police also later found no evidence against Rowley.

Rowley, a geologist by training, had been tipped for the axe at last year’s general election after a controversial secret poll of MPs performances, commissioned by Manning, gave him an unfavourable rating. The popular Housing Minister, who began his career in 1986 as an opposition MP, however remained in the race and won his seat.

But a hint of the lingering animosity between the two men came with Manning’s choosing of his Cabinet after winning the elections.

There was considerable surprise when he was not chosen for the post of Housing Minister once more, given his success in seeing 26,000 housing units start construction under his tenure.