PNM removes John-Bates from PAAC

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Two days af­ter a con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) moved against one of its own, re­mov­ing Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC).

But the par­ty re­mains silent on whether she will re­tain her seat in the Sen­ate, amid al­le­ga­tions she im­prop­er­ly as­sist­ed for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh by edit­ing his wit­ness state­ment ahead of his ap­pear­ance be­fore the com­mit­tee.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a let­ter was sent to the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing from the leader of the PNM’s Sen­ate bench, Dr Amery Browne, in­form­ing that the par­ty will be re­mov­ing John-Bates from the com­mit­tee.

The par­ty has not yet an­nounced who will re­place her on the PAAC.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, there was an emer­gency meet­ing of the PAAC that John-Bates did not at­tend. While that meet­ing was done pri­vate­ly, Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that John-Bates sent a let­ter to the PAAC ques­tion­ing what spe­cif­ic stand­ing or­ders she breached.

Al­le­ga­tions of im­prop­er con­duct sur­faced af­ter for­mer health min­is­ter Deyals­ingh in­ad­ver­tent­ly sub­mit­ted a Word doc­u­ment con­tain­ing vis­i­ble “Track Changes” ed­its and com­ments.

A copy ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia shows both Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi list­ed as hav­ing made re­vi­sions. While Al-Rawi is not on the PAAC, ques­tions are be­ing asked about if his in­volve­ment can al­so be seen as im­prop­er con­duct.

But the mat­ter may not be over, de­spite John-Bates’ re­moval from the PAAC.

Guardian Me­dia was al­so told that there may be moves to re­fer her and pos­si­bly Al-Rawi to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

The Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee can rec­om­mend sanc­tions rang­ing from a for­mal rep­ri­mand or apol­o­gy to sus­pen­sion from the ser­vice of the House for a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od or, in ex­treme cas­es, ex­pul­sion.

If the PNM de­cides to re­move her from the Up­per House, then it will have to in­form the Pres­i­dent.

Ef­forts to ob­tain a re­sponse from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les since Tues­day have been un­suc­cess­ful, even as Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that in­ter­nal­ly, par­ty mem­bers con­cede there is lit­tle de­fence avail­able on her be­half.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath told Guardian Me­dia he does not be­lieve John-Bates did any­thing “un­usu­al,” but said the is­sue is that she was ul­ti­mate­ly caught.

“It’s just that Ter­rence Deyals­ingh was fool­ish enough to sub­mit the Word doc­u­ment with the track changes on it. But is there any sug­ges­tion or any ev­i­dence to sug­gest that this has not been hap­pen­ing in the past? I don’t think so.”

How­ev­er, Ra­goonath said the po­lit­i­cal­ly eth­i­cal thing for the PNM to do is to al­so re­move John-Bates from the Up­per House.

“I think from an eth­i­cal point of view, the PNM should take a prin­ci­pled stance to say, we will re­move her from the Sen­ate know­ing full well what she would have done.”

He added, “The PNM has 200,000 oth­er mem­bers, I am sure they could find some­body com­pe­tent and qual­i­fied to fill that po­si­tion.”

But for­mer Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith is ques­tion­ing which Stand­ing Or­ders John-Bates breached.

While he ad­mit­ted that this was an “em­bar­rass­ing” sit­u­a­tion for the PNM, he told Guardian Me­dia, “I don’t re­call, if in fact there was some pro­vi­sion that says if you get help from some­body else or get them to write your pa­per for you, you’ve com­mit­ted a griev­ous ac­tion, I don’t think that is in writ­ing any­where if you look up the Stand­ing Or­ders.”

How­ev­er, he added, “On the oth­er hand, on gen­er­al prin­ci­ples, it could be that this is a breach of priv­i­lege. I would think that if the PNM saw that com­ing down, they’d re­al­ly want to shut down this em­bar­rass­ment as soon as pos­si­ble.”

Coun­cil mem­ber of the Phar­ma­cy Board Ri­car­do Mo­hammed has ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over this de­vel­op­ment.

The PAAC is in­ves­ti­gat­ing how phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals are sup­plied and im­port­ed in­to the coun­try. The Board said it was ea­ger to ven­ti­late is­sues of “un­fair trade prac­tices.”

Up­on dis­cov­ery of John-Bates’ in­volve­ment in Deyals­ingh’s wit­ness state­ment on Mon­day, the sit­ting of the PAAC was post­poned to April 27.

Mo­hammed said, “It is rather dis­ap­point­ing to see now that we had to post­pone one of these meet­ings be­cause a sen­a­tor de­cides to as­sist a key wit­ness in al­ter­ing their state­ments. Now, why are we try­ing to pur­port the cause of jus­tice?”

Mo­hammed added, “When we are try­ing to in­ter­fere with these process­es, we have to ask our ques­tion, what are they try­ing to hide or pre­vent from com­ing out from this? We are hop­ing that jus­tice is served across the board.”

Sev­er­al at­tempts to get a com­ment from Deyals­ingh and John-Bates by phone and text mes­sages were un­suc­cess­ful.