Rowley hits Narace over Elias

Rowley yesterday addressed the annual convention of the St Ann’s East constituency of fellow back-bench MP Anthony Roberts.

Rowley stormed, “It is unacceptable for any Government Minister to take a position bad- mouthing local professionals.”

He said if the Government had mismanaged the Scarborough Hospital, this should be acknowledged but without the Government trying to protect itself by bad-mouthing local professionals.

Rowley urged party members to stand up against wrongdoing even by their own party, recalling the reluctance of many to criticise the Caroni Racing Complex, and urging they follow the example of the late George Chambers whom, upon becoming Prime Minister, had stopped the project and declared that what was wrong would be put right.

He warned the party against complacency in this time of high State revenues, saying that — like couples divorcing more easily when prospering — so too could the population more easily divorce itself from the current Government. Rowley warned that many oil-rich countries do not allow general elections, saying, “They rule by decree and dictatorship.”

He said the PNM had only won one-third of the 900,000 persons eligible to vote last elections, and that there was a majority which could vote against the PNM, as shown by 1986.

Rowley also recalled supporting a COSTAATT document urging affirmative action in education for African males to save them from the gun-culture but how after an Opposition outcry, the Government had claimed it was a typographical error. “ I found myself attacked by my own colleagues who lied to Parliament. Are you surprised to see a similar thing today?”