PM slams Beckles over inaction on John-Bates resignation

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dou­bled down on her crit­i­cism of Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les for what she de­scribed as a fail­ure to take de­ci­sive ac­tion re­gard­ing the fu­ture of Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, as con­tro­ver­sy con­tin­ues to swirl over the sen­a­tor’s res­ig­na­tion and her role on key par­lia­men­tary over­sight com­mit­tees.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments came as a Gov­ern­ment mo­tion to re­place John-Bates on a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­tin­ued in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­prop­er con­duct linked to a doc­u­ment sub­mis­sion now un­der scruti­ny.

John-Bates ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion near­ly two weeks ago, but Beck­les has yet to pub­licly state whether she has for­mal­ly ac­cept­ed it.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned Beck­les’ au­thor­i­ty and ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Leader of fail­ing to act in­de­pen­dent­ly.

“Beck­les does not have the au­thor­i­ty to re­move Al-Rawi and John-Bates. Maybe she is wait­ing on the own­ers of the PNM to give in­struc­tions,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

“The PNM par­ty is just the po­lit­i­cal arm of its fake elite fi­nanciers. Beck­les is a con­tin­u­a­tion of Row­ley and Stu­art, ar­gu­ing for low-pay­ing me­nial work for their sup­port­ers while act­ing to pro­tect the bil­lions go­ing to their fake elite fi­nanciers,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Prime Min­is­ter con­trast­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s cur­rent agen­da with what she de­scribed as the Op­po­si­tion’s out­dat­ed pol­i­cy fo­cus.

“Imag­ine while we are speak­ing of AI da­ta cen­tres, re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion plans, new trade agree­ments, mod­ernising ed­u­ca­tion, ex­pand­ing our en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy sec­tors, Beck­les and the PNM’s 2030 vi­sion is to bring back CEPEP and URP,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion’s per­for­mance in con­stituen­cies un­der PNM con­trol, claim­ing they con­tin­ue to face “the high­est crime rates, low­est em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, worst ed­u­ca­tion­al out­comes, worst in­fra­struc­ture and de­clin­ing busi­ness con­di­tions.”

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing John-Bates has placed ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on Beck­les to clar­i­fy her po­si­tion.