Panday to PM: Name senators or withdraw allegations

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ei­ther name the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors she ac­cused of seek­ing per­son­al favours in ex­change for leg­isla­tive sup­port, or with­draw the al­le­ga­tion en­tire­ly.

Pan­day said the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments, made in a so­cial me­dia post fol­low­ing the de­feat of the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) Bill, amount to a se­ri­ous ac­cu­sa­tion of cor­rup­tion that can­not be left vague or un­re­solved.

In her post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed, “Dur­ing the de­bate, two of the Pres­i­dent’s Sen­a­tors ap­proached a se­nior Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor seek­ing per­son­al favours in ex­change for sup­port and for se­cur­ing the re­main­ing votes need­ed for pas­sage. Those re­quests were re­ject­ed. From that mo­ment, it was clear the Bill would not pass. They know who they are. They must live with that shame.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so added, “My Gov­ern­ment will not buy votes… This is why I warn about the fake ‘eat-a-food’ elite. They do not care about de­cent, hard­work­ing cit­i­zens, on­ly self-in­ter­est and priv­i­lege.”

In re­sponse, Pan­day said the re­marks go far be­yond po­lit­i­cal rhetoric and strike at the in­tegri­ty of Par­lia­ment.

“These are not ca­su­al re­marks. They are a di­rect al­le­ga­tion that In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors at­tempt­ed to trade per­son­al favours for leg­isla­tive sup­port,” Pan­day said.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader added, “That is a se­ri­ous claim and one that can­not re­spon­si­bly be left vague. If the Prime Min­is­ter is as­sert­ing that pub­lic of­fi­cials sought in­duce­ments in ex­change for votes, then she must ex­plain pre­cise­ly what was re­quest­ed and name those in­volved so the mat­ter can be prop­er­ly as­sessed by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.”

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter on two oc­ca­sions to name the sen­a­tors in­volved, how­ev­er she de­clined to do so.

Pan­day said that un­der the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act, cor­rupt­ly so­lic­it­ing a gift, loan, fee or ad­van­tage as an in­duce­ment for a pub­lic of­fi­cer to act, or re­frain from act­ing, is a crim­i­nal of­fence.

“In Trinidad and To­ba­go, this is not a mat­ter for in­sin­u­a­tion or pub­lic sham­ing with­out ac­count­abil­i­ty,” she said. “It ap­plies to agents of the State and pub­lic bod­ies and car­ries penal­ties in­clud­ing sig­nif­i­cant fines and im­pris­on­ment.”

She stressed that if the Prime Min­is­ter has ev­i­dence, it must be placed be­fore the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties rather than re­main­ing in the realm of so­cial me­dia com­men­tary.

“If ev­i­dence ex­ists, it must be pre­sent­ed. If in­di­vid­u­als are in­volved, they must be iden­ti­fied. If a crime is al­leged, it must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” Pan­day said.

“Un­til the Prime Min­is­ter pro­vides specifics of what was re­quest­ed, by whom and when, this al­le­ga­tion re­mains un­re­solved and deeply trou­bling. Claims of cor­rup­tion can­not live in so­cial me­dia posts. They be­long in the light of ac­count­abil­i­ty, ev­i­dence and the rule of law.”

Pan­day said the coun­try is now await­ing dis­clo­sure or clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter.

“Name them or with­draw the al­le­ga­tion,” she added