Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced at his Press Conference on Sunday afternoon (22nd May 2022) that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been cho­sen to re­ceive “not-insignificant” fund­ing from the Bill & Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion. However, in a most-embarrassing turn of events, the Prime Minister is now saying he was scammed — and that there is NO funding on its way from the coveted Foundation.

In a statement released on Monday (23rd May 2022), the Prime Minister was forced to admit that someone “attempted to encourage me to use a foreign bank to receive this grant but there would be a significant processing fee.” He added, “My suspicion was further aroused when the person on the other end attempted to guide me towards making a substantial deposit in a Chinese bank as a prerequisite to receiving the grant. P.M Rowley later in his statement admitted said he was now “convinced that this was a most brazen scam being run in the shocking manner as described” and he also promised to get the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) involved in the matter.

See the Prime Minister’s rather strange statement in full below, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section:

Prime Minister Keith Rowley held a Press Conference at 2pm yesterday afternoon (Sunday 22nd May 2022) at the VIP Lounge, Piarco International Airport, following his return from a week in Guyana.

​Below are the key points discussed at that Press Conference:

- Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been cho­sen to re­ceive “not-insignificant” fund­ing from the Bill & Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion, which is led in part by one of the world’s richest men.

- He not­ed that re­la­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana are good and said he al­so had good re­la­tions with Guyana’s Vice-Pres­i­dent Bhar­rat Jagdeo, who had raised the ire of some when he de­scribed T&T’s econ­o­my as “falling apart” ear­li­er this year. “He will tell you and I will tell you we get along very well.”

- The Prime Minister said the con­cerns raised by Guyana’s busi­ness cham­ber on the non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers were a case of their busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty want­i­ng the best for their coun­try. He said there should be no issues as long as bar­ri­ers do not hurt T&T’s econ­o­my and added that the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, re­gard­ing trade, should take prece­dence if the in­ter­ests of CARICOM and the in­ter­ests of the free mar­ket and econ­o­my are to pre­vail.

- P.M Rowley said, “I have been in Guyana for a week and I’ve had noth­ing but a warm wel­come and a clear un­der­stand­ing and en­thu­si­asm from the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Guyana.”

- He added that Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to work with Guyana’s en­er­gy sec­tor and that the Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vice has con­firmed its third con­tract to ser­vice the off­shore Rep­sol fields in Guyana.

- The Prime Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced that the month of June will be a very busy month for Trinidad and To­ba­go and CARICOM in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

- He said he has made a de­ci­sion to at­tend the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Los An­ge­les from 6th June to 10th June 2022 and that the ma­jor­i­ty of CARICOM mem­bers will at­tend. CARICOM had ob­ject­ed to the Unit­ed States’ po­si­tion to­wards Cu­ba, but Prime Minister Row­ley said that with the U.S. mak­ing some con­ces­sions, it was felt that CARICOM need­ed to at­tend to ad­dress is­sues that are im­por­tant to the re­gion.

- P.M Row­ley said a T&T con­tin­gent, led by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr. Amery Browne, will al­so at­tend the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwan­da be­gin­ning on 21st June 2022 and that T&T will vote for Ja­maican For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kam­i­na John­son Smith as the new Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Com­mon­wealth.

- Prime Minister Row­ley will not at­tend CHOGM but will be at­tend­ing a world sum­mit called by the Eu­ro­pean Union on 21st June and 22nd June 2022 to dis­cuss mat­ters of de­vel­op­ment that T&T and the re­gion are in­ter­est­ed in. He will rep­re­sent CARICOM to­geth­er with CARICOM’s Chair­man, Prime Min­is­ter of Be­lize John Briceno, and Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness. Three (3) Latin Amer­i­can lead­ers will al­so at­tend, to­geth­er with the lead­ers of E.U. coun­tries, the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and lead­ers of Asian coun­tries.

- The Prime Minister noted, “So June is a very busy month for me, T&T and CARICOM be­cause sig­nif­i­cant de­ci­sion-mak­ing is to be had.”

If you missed Sunday’s Press Conference, you can watch it below in its entirety.

[Source: T&T Guardian]

Prime Minister Keith Rowley will be hosting a Press Conference at 2pm this afternoon (Sunday 22nd May 2022) at the VIP Lounge, Piarco International Airport. Today’s Press Conference was announced by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) yesterday afternoon.

Prime Minister Rowley departed for Guyana on Tuesday (17th May 2022) where he attended a regional meeting on agriculture. CARICOM leaders also gathered in Georgetown for the Agri-Investment Forum and Expo. While in Guyana, the Prime Minister engaged in bilateral discussions with His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.

Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Senator the Hon. Dr Amery Browne, Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Senator the Hon. Kazim Hosein and Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Land, Fisheries, Senator the Hon. Avinash Singh accompanied the Prime Minister on this trip.

Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert acted as Prime Minister in the interim.

Watch the live stream of the Press Conference below when it begins at 2pm, courtesy of TTT.

In a statement released on Wednesday evening (18th May 2022), Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says that [Prime Minister Keith] Rowley and the PNM “have been caught lying about the Sabga Report” and that the Police “must step in and investigate reports of a longstanding pedophile ring operating within the PNM.”

Mrs. Persad-Bissessar said it is not surprising that “Keith Rowley is focused on the Robert Sabga report commissioned 25 years ago rather than the Justice Jones report, outlining serious sexual and physical abuse occurring presently under the Children’s Authority.” She said this is clearly “an attempt to deflect from the disclosure that high-ranking PNM members were and are still involved in a pedophile ring.”

According to the Opposition Leader, the PNM is instead focused on “smearing Robert Sabga and falsely claiming that the report produced by the Sabga-led committee was somehow ‘buried.’ The idea that the report produced by Robert Sabga and the team was somehow a secretive document or was buried is a complete lie!”

On the contrary, Mrs. Persad-Bissessar outlined the following:

1) The recommendations made in the Sabga Report were enacted in Parliament by the Panday Government. The following Bills were introduced in 1999 in response to the Sabga Report, sent to a JSC and passed in 2000, which the subsequent PNM Government refused to implement:

• The Children's Authority Bill, 1999;
  
• The Children (Amendment) Bill, 1999;
  
• The Adoption of Children Bill, 1999;
  
• The Miscellaneous Provisions (Children) Bill, 1999;
  
• The Children's Community Residences, Foster Homes and Nurseries Bill, 1999.
  

2) Minister Ramsaran has stated on Hansard that the Sabga Report was laid in Parliament. Rowley has been in Parliament since 1987.

3) Minister Ramsaran has publicly stated that he gave a copy of the Sabga Report to then COP Hilton Guy and discussed the same with him.

4) the Sabga Report and its recommendations have been referenced numerous times in relation to legislation enacted by the Panday Government to improve the care of children in State facilities, including by Camille Robinson-Regis.

(i) The Sabga Report was referenced in 2002 by Independent Senator Ramesh Deosaran and Camille Robinson-Regis who are recorded in Hansard as saying;

Deosaran: “Almost 5 years ago there was a report on children's homes, it is commonly called the Sabga Report. The gentleman who did the report under the then Ministry of Social Development was Mr. Robert Sabga. I would suggest that the Minister look at that report carefully”.

Robinson-Regis: “In fact, that particular Sabga Report was used by the then Ministry of Social Development to examine all the issues as they related to the care of children. The issues that were raised in that report were very revealing in circumstances where our society had depended on a number of foster homes to ensure care for our young children and for children who had suffered abandonment by their families. That report did, in fact, inform quite a number of the policies that were developed during that period, especially as they related to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,”

(ii) Line Minister Manohar Ramsaran also referred to the report in June 2006 in the House of Representatives and is recorded in Hansard as saying:

“I remember when I first talked about the abuse of children reaching my Ministry in this Parliament, the Member for Diego Martin East laughed and asked me if I was living somewhere in Mars. We appointed a committee which was headed by Dr. Robert Sabga to investigate homes in this country, and that report is somewhere in the Parliament. It was laid in Parliament. When that committee visited homes, they found children were being abused and the Managers of these homes tried everything to prevent the committee from going into these buildings. They almost went to Court. I hurriedly went to the Cabinet and appointed an Inspector of homes who had the legal authority to visit these homes.”

(iii) Furthermore, in 2008 former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj also acknowledged the Sabga Report and was recorded in Hansard saying:

“But on the same page, in 2000, after recommendations from the 1997 Task Force Report on children in institutions, a comprehensive package of legislation was enacted. The major component of this package was Act No. 64 of 2000 which provided for the establishment of the Children's Authority to act as a guardian of the children of Trinidad and Tobago. The Authority is to advise the Minister with responsibility for children on matters relating to the operation of the Act, license and monitor community residences, foster homes and nurseries after establishing standards for operation, investigate complaints relating to the care and protection of children, monitor all agencies addressing children matters to act as an advocate for the rights of all children in Trinidad and Tobago. The Act is yet to be proclaimed. So, the Ministry of Social Development was saying up to 2006 that this is the goal to implement the Act, to implement this package of legislation and it has this under the heading: “Progress achieved.”

5) Rowley has yet to hold his former handpicked Director of the Children's Authority, former PNM candidate Nichola Harvey Mitchell, to account for the crimes committed against vulnerable children under her watch.

The Opposition Leader concluded her statement by saying, “The Police must also step in and investigate reports of a longstanding pedophile ring operating within the PNM. Rowley must call the names of his PNM colleagues involved in the pedophile ring alleged by Sabga.”

The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has announced that Prime Minister Keith Rowley will depart for Guyana today (Tuesday 17th May 2022) where he will attend a regional meeting on agriculture. CARICOM leaders are expected to gather in Georgetown this week for the Agri-Investment Forum and Expo.

The OPM states that the forum, themed “Investing in Vision 25 by 2025,” is aimed at reducing the region’s food import bill and helping to attract investment in the agriculture sector. The forum is also expected to address issues directly related to investment in agriculture and food production, including cross-border investment, climate change-smart agriculture and related infrastructure development.

While in Guyana, the Prime Minister is also expected to engage in bilateral discussions with His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.

Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Senator the Hon. Dr. Amery Browne, Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Senator the Hon. Kazim Hosein and Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Land, Fisheries, Senator the Hon. Avinash Singh, will accompany the Prime Minister on this trip.

Minister of Finance, the Hon. Colm Imbert, will act as Prime Minister in the interim.

Responding to questions in Parliament this afternoon (Monday 16th May 2022), Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert, said implementation of the property tax on residential properties will begin this year. He did not give an exact date of commencement but noted it would be before 31st December 2022.

Earlier this month, Minister Imbert confirmed that the required 200,000 valuation returns for residential property owners had been received.

The Minister is currently presenting the 2022 Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament, which you can watch live here.

This is a developing story - refresh this page for updates.