PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the People’s National Movement is no longer a political party acting in the national interest but an organisation owned and directed by elite financiers who have shielded Senator Faris Al-Rawi from parliamentary accountability, using a dramatic Senate walkout as her proof.
In a statement published on her official Facebook page, Persad-Bissessar said the PNM’s financiers have hijacked the party since 2010 and that the current party hierarchy, including Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles, cannot act against Al-Rawi because those financiers will not permit it. She described Beckles as having been installed by those same financiers to replace the former PNM leadership, leaving her without the authority to make independent decisions about the party’s own affairs.
Senate Walkout Exposes PNM Shield Around Faris Al-Rawi
Persad-Bissessar identified the precise moment that, in her assessment, exposed the financiers’ grip on the PNM. When government MP Jearlean John called on Beckles to remove Al-Rawi from the Senate over his role in the PAAC scandal, every PNM member of parliament fled the chamber. The prime minister noted that PNM MPs had remained seated when the government moved against Senator Janelle John-Bates but vacated at the specific moment Al-Rawi’s removal was raised.
For Persad-Bissessar, the distinction was not procedural. It was, she said, a deliberate refusal by Beckles to demonstrate to the nation that she holds real authority over her own party. The prime minister said the walkout confirmed what she had long maintained, that the PNM exists solely to serve its financiers and not the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
Billions in Contracts and the PAAC Findings Behind the Scandal
The prime minister identified the underlying matter as the findings of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee, which examined pharmaceutical procurement contracts under former Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh. Persad-Bissessar said the PAAC report sets out serious findings of unethical and possibly illegal conduct by both Al-Rawi and Senator John-Bates, including the tampering of evidence intended for a witness appearing before that same committee. She further noted that the contracts in question involved the questionable payment of billions of dollars to pharmaceutical suppliers during Deyalsingh’s tenure.
Persad-Bissessar said the PNM’s refusal to act against Al-Rawi in the face of those findings is not a matter of procedural caution or legal complexity. It is, in her words, the direct consequence of who controls the party and whose interests that party is designed to protect.
A Direct Challenge to Beckles’ Authority
The prime minister’s statement amounts to a direct and public challenge to the PNM leadership crisis and Beckles’ standing as opposition leader. Persad-Bissessar said Beckles has failed to demonstrate to the nation that she leads the PNM, arguing that her flight from the chamber alongside her MPs removed any doubt about where real power in that party resides.
Persad-Bissessar, who returned to office in May 2025 after leading the United National Congress to a 26-13 general election victory, said none of this surprised her, even if it astonished others. She positioned the walkout not as a crisis within the PNM but as confirmation of a structural reality she said has defined that party for the past fifteen years.
Senator Al-Rawi, the former attorney general, has previously declined to address the PAAC report allegations on the substance, citing legal professional privilege in his capacity as attorney for Deyalsingh. Senator John-Bates has offered her resignation to Beckles, who had not announced a decision at the time of the prime minister’s statement. Neither Al-Rawi nor a PNM spokesperson had responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
