Top PNM lieutenants to meet with Achong?

PNM chairman and Works and Transport Minister Franklyn Khan, Gender Affairs Minister Joan Yuille-Williams and Ambassador John Donaldson, were due to meet in secret discusssions with Pt Fortin MP Lawrence Achong, at Achong’s Pt Fortin constituency office last night starting at 7 pm. However, shortly before the meeting was about to start, it was reported that Khan had postponed it. Sources told Newsday last night’s meeting was a last-ditch effort by the PNM hierarchy to bring Achong back into the party fold and smooth over any contentious issues between Achong and Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Sources said the last thing the PNM wanted, with its slim majority of four, was for Achong to quit the party at this time.

The meeting was carded in the wake of Achong’s resignation as Labour Minister on Friday, followed by a widening of the rift when Achong objected to police and soldiers being sent to the site of the protesting Atlantic LNG workers and publicly condemning the PNM on Monday. Achong, who joined the workers in a demonstration declared to hundreds of protesting Atlantic LNG train IV construction workers and the media, that he was reconsidering his position in the PNM, which he also described as brutal to workers. “I now publicly declare, that I will have to review my relationship with a Government and a party that had intended to brutalise the people of Point Fortin, if you all had resisted here today,” Achong told the workers Monday.

Achong later waded into the government accusing Manning of employing strong arm tactics against the “peaceful workers of Point Fortin”. Achong’s public utterances against his own party and political leader, came mere days after he told Newsday he was remaining a PNM member and would continue to represent his Point Fortin constituents. Since Achong’s resignation as Labour Minister and his vocal attack on the PNM, Prime Minister Manning has remained silent on the issue, in the first instance over the weekend complaining of an attack of laryngitis which rendered him speechless and during a conference on AIDS yesterday, flatly telling the media he had no comment. Efforts by Newsday yesterday to get a comment from Achong, over his political future, were futile. Pt Fortin Mayor St Clair Natta told Newsday he would not offer any comments on the Achong issue just yet. “Please, check with me tomorrow as I am not prepared to say anything on that matter just yet,” Mayor Natta told Newsday.