Smith disappoints PM

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday said although he has received Smith’s report on $92,000 being spent to taken 12 persons from the ministry to Tobago for a THA awards ceremony, he has taken no decision on the controversial matter as yet.

“The answer is ‘no’. I have not,” Rowley said during a news conference at the Parliament in Port of Spain during the House’s tea-break. “But I will in the nottoo- distant future.” Rowley, who along with his wife Sharon and four Cabinet members leaves on Sunday for an official trip to Chile said he was disappointed about the situation.

“I am very disappointed with what I saw in the Ministry of Sport, I must say. But I am not overwhelmed by it because I am leading a young Cabinet and I have a responsibility to ensure they are guided appropriately.

I think I have been doing that and maybe not enough guidance would have followed at the Ministry of Sports. And I take responsibility for that and I will rectify that,” Rowley said.

He cautioned that people should not be quick to condemn Smith.

“I don’t want us to overdo the condemnation because while this is to be condemned for what one thinks is excess...maybe my lifestyle is different to other people.

But I have made this point in Local Government and I have made it in the Cabinet and it is this, taxpayers’ money is not available for office holders...to have a good time.” He said there was “no amount of justification”, for such action. Alluding to a $59,000 phone bill incurred by Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe during a recent visit to the Bahamas, Rowley said: “I see that for what it is...it could easily have been me.” He said Clerk of the House Jacqui Sampson gave him a quick lesson in phone usage before his recent trip to Ghana.

“She came to my office of her own free will, with good intentions and said to me, ‘let me see your phone’. And she showed me what I had to do once I get out of Trinidad and Tobago, to turn off the data roaming,” he said. “I was going to Ghana for a week.

So you could imagine what kind of phone bill I would have had.

When you get across there, you had to identify the cellular and data roaming and turn off the data roaming on your phone otherwise the data roaming, once the phone is on, it will pull down data at some humongous cost and that ends up on your phone bill.” Rowley said the Government intends to seek the advice of an experienced individual in the public service to conceptualise a workable cellular management protocol for members of the Cabinet and government. “We are trying to eliminate waste, mismanagement and corruption,” he said.