T&T: PM Rowley fires back at Opposition, claims he is 'Least Travelled CARICOM Leader'

The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley, has described himself as the ‘least traveled CARICOM PM’ while bashing the Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar for making mischief about his travels.

According to the information, Dr Rowley is not attending the United Nations General Assembly; instead, Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne is leading Trinidad and Tobago’s delegation to the meeting.

The Prime Minister said that next month he will be leading the country’s mission to the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Samao and confirmed this during a press conference on Monday when asked about whether he will be attending the current high level week of activities in New York.

However, Rowley slammed the opposition leader for making an issue of how many times he as Prime Minister travelled abroad. He accused her of mischief and said that she even took time to actually count the number of days to be able to report the same in nine years as he was away for 372 days (according to her).

While explaining himself, he said that as Prime Minister there are several occasions that he is required to go outside the country to conduct national business and most of these are on the calendar by prior arrangements while others are initiated by circumstances.

He said that he has been very selective on which meetings he attend based on the agenda of the specific meeting or other considerations.

Rowley emphasized that even as Persad Bissessar spoke about his travel it is she and Rodney Charles who at other times chastise him for not attending COP meeting and he has only attended two such meetings.

The Prime Minister noted that as an undisputed fact, he is probably the least traveled CARICOM Prime Minister as he has only attended two Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings and two of the annual UN General Assembly during his entire tenure.

He remarked that he usually has the Foreign Minister represent Trinidad and Tobago on several of these occasions where he could have taken to chance to travel and the same is the case at the present time where Minister Browne is leading the delegation at the 78th UNGA.