PNM boycotts Prime Minister’s Questions, calls it a charade

The Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion has re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of turn­ing the par­lia­men­tary ex­er­cise in­to a “shame­ful par­lia­men­tary cha­rade” de­signed to shield Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar from scruti­ny.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Op­po­si­tion said more than 90 per cent of the ques­tions it sub­mit­ted for the Prime Min­is­ter to an­swer had been de­nied.

It al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of pre­vent­ing the Op­po­si­tion from ask­ing sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions aris­ing from the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­swers and state­ments.

The Op­po­si­tion said Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions was in­tro­duced in­to the Stand­ing Or­ders in 2014, along with Prac­tice Di­rec­tions is­sued un­der then Speak­er Wade Mark, as a mech­a­nism to hold the Prime Min­is­ter di­rect­ly ac­count­able to Par­lia­ment and the peo­ple.

It said the prac­tice had since been “sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly un­der­mined”.

The Op­po­si­tion con­trast­ed the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the pe­ri­od when for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was in of­fice, say­ing he at­tend­ed Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions and sub­ject­ed him­self to sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions from the then Op­po­si­tion.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­ten­dance in Par­lia­ment, say­ing she had been ab­sent for the en­tire month of Sep­tem­ber and had re­turned for the first time since the an­nu­al Au­gust re­cess.

“The Op­po­si­tion will not par­tic­i­pate in that pre­tence,” the state­ment said.

It said the re­fusal to par­tic­i­pate was al­so linked to wider con­cerns about the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of par­lia­men­tary ques­tions.

“Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters are in­creas­ing­ly in­vok­ing Stand­ing Or­ders to avoid an­swer­ing crit­i­cal ques­tions in­volv­ing mat­ters of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est,” the Op­po­si­tion said.

It al­so claimed sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions to Min­is­ters were be­ing blocked, while Ques­tions on No­tice were be­ing “rou­tine­ly de­nied, de­ferred or de­layed”.

The Op­po­si­tion called for an ur­gent meet­ing of the Stand­ing Or­ders Com­mit­tee to ad­dress what it de­scribed as a de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in par­lia­men­tary ac­count­abil­i­ty.

It al­so called for sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter to be re­stored dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions.

“The Par­lia­ment be­longs to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the Op­po­si­tion said. “It must nev­er be trans­formed in­to an in­stru­ment for shield­ing a Prime Min­is­ter or Gov­ern­ment from ac­count­abil­i­ty.”