THE Prime Minister batted against the Opposition's onslaught of questions on national security and touched on procurement and the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) at Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Dr Rowley replied to 11 questions, while the order paper listed 22 questions for oral answer by various ministers, plus one urgent question.
In all this, he defended the performance of Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds against opposition barbs.
The PM said the recent Caricom crime symposium on violence and public health had cost only $1.5 million, not the $15 million figure recently suggested by Naparima MP Rodney Charles. Rowley said Charles ought to publicly apologise for allegedly spreading misinformation to the general public.
Charles retorted that the cost of the symposium could have fixed every pothole in Naparima, Princes Town and Moruga/Tableland constituencies.
Rowley hit back, "And so would your salary!"
Charles retorted that Rowley's salary was index-linked for inflation, saying, "Would you index my salary of $17,000 like your salary in indexed?"
In a new question, Charles asked if Rowley would consider a call by former police commissioner Gary Griffith to meet him and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Rowley replied that as head of the National Security Council he had very good reasons not to meet with Griffith under any circumstances. Regarding the Opposition, the PM said he regularly meets them in Parliament. He alleged the Opposition had obstructed everything the Government had sought to do against crime.
The PM said if the Opposition changes its position, the Government stood ready to meet them for crime talks, inside or outside Parliament.
Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh asked if - following the deaths of Kemba Morris and her daughter Zaya in a house fire in Siparia mainly due to a non-functional appliance at Siparia Fire Station - any audit was ordered of all fire stations and their state of readiness.
Rowley replied, "I will not join the Member for Couva South in seeking to try to politicise this tragedy, except to say that I'm in no position to say that the death of these people was caused by a non-functional fire unit. That is an irresponsible statement.
"The Government will not join Couva South in saying that, because the deaths of those two unfortunate people was not so simply described."
Rowley then said last year March the Government had approved $30.1 million under the development programme to acquire a fleet of vehicles for the fire service.
"The vehicles included three water tenders, one emergency tender, one ambulance, and one chemical industrial tender, among other vehicles.
"The vehicles were to be assigned to the fire station at Mayaro, Penal and Point Fortin."
This was part of the Government's ongoing work, to strengthen where it had to, and to go from strength to strength, the PM said.
Charles shot up, in
