House clashes over call to remove John-Bates, Al-Rawi

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

The Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day moved a mo­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives seek­ing to com­pel the Op­po­si­tion Leader to re­voke the ap­point­ments of Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi, trig­ger­ing heat­ed ex­changes.

Pi­lot­ing the mo­tion, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein de­scribed the con­duct in ques­tion as “un­law­ful and con­temp­tu­ous,” and ac­cused Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les of fail­ing to act de­ci­sive­ly.

He re­ferred to her as a “cow­ard,” sug­gest­ing she had left the cham­ber be­cause she was “afraid” to dis­miss Al-Rawi.

“The mem­ber for Ari­ma will con­tin­ue to pussy­foot around this is­sue be­cause she’s afraid to act,” Ho­sein said.

The re­marks prompt­ed re­peat­ed ob­jec­tions from Op­po­si­tion MPs, in­clud­ing Colm Im­bert and Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who raised con­cerns about what they de­scribed as in­sult­ing lan­guage. How­ev­er, those ob­jec­tions were over­ruled by the Deputy Speak­er Dr Ay­i­na Ali.

Im­bert lat­er rose on Stand­ing Or­der 48(1), ar­gu­ing the de­bate had drift­ed be­yond the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s con­duct.

“Ari­ma is so cow­ard she can­not even ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion of Sen­a­tor John-Bates,” Ho­sein said, prompt­ing fur­ther protests from the Op­po­si­tion bench.

The mo­tion, which sought adop­tion of a Spe­cial Re­port of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, ex­am­ined al­le­ga­tions con­cern­ing John-Bates’ con­duct dur­ing par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings.

The House heard that al­le­ga­tions were made that for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh at­tend­ed meet­ings where de­ci­sions were al­leged­ly in­flu­enced re­gard­ing pay­ments to con­trac­tors and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­pli­ers.

Ho­sein said Deyals­ingh was in­vit­ed to pro­vide ev­i­dence to the com­mit­tee but ap­peared with­out doc­u­men­ta­tion and was lat­er asked to sub­mit his ev­i­dence in writ­ing, which he agreed to do.

How­ev­er, Ho­sein said up­on re­view of the sub­mit­ted state­ment, “track changes” were dis­cov­ered at­trib­uted to John-Bates and Al-Rawi.

He said John-Bates, who yes­ter­day said she had of­fered her res­ig­na­tion to Beck­les, made ed­its on March 23, af­ter which Deyals­ingh re­quest­ed an ex­ten­sion to his dead­line on March 24. Fur­ther amend­ments were re­port­ed­ly made by Al-Rawi on April 7 and 8.

“This is why I am say­ing that he (Al-Rawi) threw Sen­a­tor John-Bates un­der the bus. When we look at the da­ta, Ms John-Bates made 37 ed­its over a pe­ri­od of 25 min­utes. Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi made about 175 changes to that doc­u­ment over a two-day pe­ri­od. So, you un­der­stand who is re­al­ly the guilty mind in this. That is a young sen­a­tor, but Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi ought to have known bet­ter.”

Ho­sein said nei­ther sen­a­tor dis­closed the ed­its dur­ing com­mit­tee pro­ceed­ings.

“If she didn’t get catch, you think she had in­tegri­ty?”

Re­fer­ring to the Spe­cial Re­port, he said John-Bates had ques­tioned the scope of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, de­spite hav­ing al­ready made changes to Deyals­ingh’s state­ment.

He added that be­tween March 25 and mid-April com­mit­tee sit­tings, in­clud­ing pub­lic hear­ings in­volv­ing of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Health, the Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion, NIPDEC and pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the edit­ed state­ment was not dis­cov­ered un­til lat­er.

De­scrib­ing the con­duct as pre­med­i­tat­ed, Ho­sein al­so ac­cused John-Bates of in­ter­fer­ing in ques­tion­ing dur­ing a com­mit­tee ses­sion in­volv­ing Min­is­ter Jear­lean John.

“You see shame­less? That is shame­less. Dog eat dey shame!”

He said Al-Rawi had ef­fec­tive­ly con­tributed to draft­ing parts of the wit­ness state­ment, in­clud­ing ref­er­ences to me­dia re­ports and is­sues re­lat­ing to pro­cure­ment and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pay­ments.

Op­po­si­tion MPs, in­clud­ing Gads­by-Dol­ly, con­tin­ued to ob­ject dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings, ar­gu­ing that Beck­les was be­ing un­fair­ly drawn in­to the de­bate.

The mo­tion was ul­ti­mate­ly amend­ed to in­clude a for­mal con­dem­na­tion of both sen­a­tors and to call on Beck­les to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to re­voke their ap­point­ments. The amend­ment was sec­ond­ed by Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Op­po­si­tion MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, re­spond­ing for the Op­po­si­tion, con­demned the tone of the de­bate and ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of dou­ble stan­dards, prompt­ing fur­ther ob­jec­tions from Gov­ern­ment.

“If I may, we sat here and heard Barataria/San Juan talk about our leader. And, madam Deputy Speak­er, I am re­spond­ing in re­la­tion to their leader. And, madam Deputy Speak­er, we al­so have Ma­yaro who is Mr False Pa­pers. He didn’t get put out. We have Oropouche East, who is be­fore the court,” she said.

“We will not have them im­pugn our leader. When she is ready to act, she will act. In ad­di­tion to that, madame Deputy Speak­er, all of them on that side have ques­tions to an­swer. Every last one.”