Ball in Penny’s court

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Em­bat­tled Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates has of­fered her res­ig­na­tion from the Up­per House to her po­lit­i­cal leader, but Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has not yet de­cid­ed if she will ac­cept it.

But while the Op­po­si­tion Leader con­sid­ers her de­ci­sion, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark yes­ter­day ruled that both John-Bates and Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

The agen­da of yes­ter­day’s sit­ting fo­cused on whether the Up­per House would ac­cept the Pub­lic Ac­counts and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Com­mit­tee (PAAC) re­port that calls for Par­lia­ment to for­mal­ly re­view John-Bates’ con­duct and con­sid­er whether her as­sis­tance in draft­ing a wit­ness state­ment for for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh con­sti­tut­ed a “con­spir­a­cy to com­mit con­tempt of Par­lia­ment” that com­pro­mised the in­tegri­ty of the com­mit­tee’s in­quiry in­to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­cure­ment.

But mo­ments be­fore the de­bate be­gan, John-Bates made a state­ment to the Sen­ate.

“I recog­nise that my in­volve­ment in this mat­ter has giv­en rise to pub­lic con­cern and has con­tributed to a lev­el of con­tro­ver­sy that risks dis­tract­ing from the im­por­tant work of this Ho­n­ourable Par­lia­ment and from the is­sues af­fect­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she told the House

John-Bates then apol­o­gised to the Par­lia­ment and the pub­lic but did not ad­mit to any wrong­do­ing.

“I apol­o­gise un­equiv­o­cal­ly to the cit­i­zens of our coun­try and to the mem­bers of this Sen­ate. It was not my in­ten­tion to ob­struct or im­pede the work of the com­mit­tee or the Par­lia­ment, and I de­ny that I con­spired to com­mit a con­tempt of Par­lia­ment.”

She added, “I here­by in­form the Sen­ate and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that I have of­fered my res­ig­na­tion to the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.”

John-Bates then sat down and stayed in the cham­ber for the re­main­der of the sit­ting.

But the Low­er House al­so sat in the af­ter­noon.

Guardian Me­dia used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask Op­po­si­tion Leader Beck­les, on her way to the Red House, if she had ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tion.

How­ev­er, Beck­les said, “Well, I’m hap­py that she apol­o­gised, so it’s un­der ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion at this time.”

Asked if there’s a time­frame she is work­ing with, Beck­les said, “No, I’m not go­ing to give a time­line.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader was al­so asked if she would de­cide on Al-Rawi’s Sen­ate fu­ture.

“I’ve asked him for a re­port and I was still go­ing to meet with him,” she replied, un­der­scor­ing that the de­ci­sion rests with her.

But in the Up­per House, Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor David Nakhid sought to re­fer both John-Bates and Al-Rawi to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

As it re­lates to John-Bates, Nakhid said the sen­a­tor should have re­cused her­self from the PAAC sit­ting once she had got­ten in­volved in as­sist­ing Deyals­ingh.

He said, “Mr Pres­i­dent, the in­escapable con­clu­sion on the face of the ma­te­r­i­al in the com­mit­tee’s re­port is that Sen­a­tor John-Bates would have con­tin­ued to sit as a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee to treat with the very ev­i­dence of Mr Deyals­ingh, which she her­self cu­rat­ed, had it not been for the chair­man’s in­ter­ven­tion. It is al­so ob­vi­ous that Mr Ter­rance Deyals­ingh knew of Sen­a­tor John-Bates’ mem­ber­ship on the com­mit­tee when he sub­mit­ted his mem­o­ran­dum of ev­i­dence.”

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to Al-Rawi, Nakhid said, “Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi SC, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, who edit­ed that mem­o­ran­dum and whose name ap­pears promi­nent­ly and fre­quent­ly in that doc­u­ment, knew that Sen­a­tor John-Bates was a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee. He not on­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the scheme, but to date he has nev­er pub­licly dis­tanced him­self from the im­pro­pri­ety of Sen­a­tor John-Bates’ con­duct.”

Al­though Al-Rawi is not a mem­ber of the PAAC, crit­ics be­lieve his in­volve­ment in as­sist­ing Deyals­ingh with his wit­ness state­ment is still un­eth­i­cal, giv­en his sen­a­to­r­i­al ap­point­ment.

But lat­er in the sit­ting, Al-Rawi shot back.

“I will de­clare that I am the at­tor­ney-at-law for M Ter­ence Deyals­ingh,” Al-Rawi told the Up­per House.

He al­so un­der­scored that the PAAC re­port does not take is­sue with him.

“My name does not ap­pear in the re­port!”

Al-Rawi de­scribed the re­port be­ing de­bat­ed as be­ing “poi­soned at its roots.”

Seek­ing to de­fend Sen­a­tor John-Bates, Al-Rawi said she was not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plain her­self be­fore the PAAC draft­ed the re­port.

“Are we be­ing asked, Mr Pres­i­dent, to in­ter­fere in a mat­ter where the re­port has ac­knowl­edged, as the Min­is­ter pi­lot­ed, that Sen­a­tor John-Bates has not been giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard? I cer­tain­ly haven’t been called up­on to say or do any­thing.”

He al­so ques­tioned the im­par­tial­i­ty of PAAC chair Jagdeo Singh.

Al-Rawi cit­ed a 2024 news­pa­per ar­ti­cle where, speak­ing in his ca­pac­i­ty as an at­tor­ney-at-law, Singh made com­ments about an al­leged “drug car­tel” in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try. Singh al­so said that he has clients who are phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal im­porters.

The PAAC, which Singh chairs, deals with the state’s im­por­ta­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

“The chair­man should nev­er have sat. He need­ed to re­cuse him­self. Au­to­mat­ic re­cusal.”

PNM Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings al­so raised con­cerns with the PAAC.

The is­sue of the “track changes” was ven­ti­lat­ed dur­ing an “in cam­era” or pri­vate ses­sion of the sit­ting. But Cum­mings lament­ed that it was leaked to the me­dia.

Some In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors al­so took is­sue with the leak.

How­ev­er, there was lit­tle sym­pa­thy for John-Bates’ con­duct.

Sen­a­tor Mar­lene Attzs told the Up­per House, “Can a sit­ting mem­ber of a com­mit­tee as­sist a wit­ness in prepar­ing ev­i­dence for that very com­mit­tee? Mr Pres­i­dent, the an­swer must be un­equiv­o­cal­ly no. Be­cause once that line is crossed, the mem­ber is no longer a neu­tral ex­am­in­er serv­ing the pub­lic in­ter­est.”

Sen­a­tor De­siree Mur­ray, mean­while, said, “I wish to state with­out equiv­o­ca­tion that the al­leged or ad­mit­ted ac­tion tak­en by the mem­ber in ques­tion was in my con­sid­ered view un­eth­i­cal.”

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts com­mis­er­at­ed with John-Bates, giv­en her in­ex­pe­ri­ence in the Par­lia­ment, but told her that it was the PNM who failed her.

“Be­cause it was in­cum­bent up­on them to say no, young ju­nior sen­a­tor, un­der­stand the pro­ce­dure and guide you in a dif­fer­ent man­ner rather than to take you down there, throw you un­der the bus, and hide like cow­ards now.”

When the re­port was put to a vote, 18 mem­bers vot­ed in favour, in­clud­ing three in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, sev­en vot­ed against and four mem­bers ab­stained.

Be­fore the Sen­ate’s ad­journ­ment, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark ruled that there was a “pri­ma fa­cie case” for both Al-Rawi and John-Bates to be re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

“Ac­cord­ing­ly, I now re­fer both mat­ters to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges for in­ves­ti­ga­tion and re­port.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath yes­ter­day said Beck­les’ hes­i­ta­tion in not ac­cept­ing John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion could send a bad sig­nal to the PNM mem­ber­ship.

He stat­ed, “The facts are not in dis­pute. The fact is clear that the sen­a­tor would have done cer­tain things that would not have been over­ly eth­i­cal or in that con­text. To that ex­tent, the po­lit­i­cal leader should ac­cept it. How­ev­er, by not im­me­di­ate­ly ac­cept­ing it, the po­lit­i­cal leader is sim­ply demon­strat­ing to some ex­tent that the PNM is not go­ing to stand up for what is un­der her lead­er­ship. The PNM is not nec­es­sar­i­ly go­ing to in­sist on eth­i­cal stan­dards and so on. But that is for the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM to de­ter­mine whether or not that’s the im­age she would like to cre­ate for the PNM.”

Asked what ram­i­fi­ca­tions there could be should Beck­les not ac­cept John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion, Ra­goonath said, “It is clear that the sen­a­tor took charge of a sit­u­a­tion which she should not have in­volved her­self in­to. But the fact of the mat­ter is, it sends a mes­sage to the mem­ber­ship of the PNM as to the lead­er­ship on these is­sues with re­gard to up­hold­ing high­er stan­dards of in­tegri­ty for mem­ber­ship.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said, “I did say that she should have al­so re­signed as a sen­a­tor, not just from the com­mit­tee, be­cause if chal­lenged, this could amount to pro­fes­sion­al mis­con­duct. So, Pene­lope Beck­les should ac­cept her res­ig­na­tion. She should ac­cept it with­out hes­i­ta­tion. That’s the prop­er thing to do.

Time­line of the John-Bates con­tro­ver­sy

March 23, 2026:

A wit­ness state­ment is pre­pared by for­mer Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in re­sponse to a Pub­lic Ac­counts and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Com­mit­tee (PAAC) in­quiry in­to the state’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Leaked doc­u­ments lat­er sug­gest this is when Sen­a­tor John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi re­port­ed­ly edit­ed the doc­u­ment.

April 13, 2026:

The sched­uled PAAC meet­ing is abrupt­ly ad­journed. Chair­man Jagdeo Singh of­fers a pub­lic apol­o­gy, cit­ing a “re­gret­table” but un­avoid­able sit­u­a­tion. It is lat­er re­vealed that dur­ing an in-cam­era ses­sion, the com­mit­tee dis­cov­ered that Deyals­ingh’s sub­mit­ted Mi­crosoft Word doc­u­ment con­tained vis­i­ble “Track Changes” and com­ments at­trib­uted to John-Bates.

April 15–16, 2026:

Me­dia re­ports emerge al­leg­ing that John-Bates “coached” the wit­ness she was meant to scru­ti­nize. Con­fir­ma­tion fol­lows that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in­tends to re­place her on the com­mit­tee.

April 17, 2026:

The PNM re­moves John-Bates from the PAAC. She is re­placed by Vish­nu Dhan­paul. John-Bates lat­er stat­ed she re­spects the de­ci­sion to al­low the com­mit­tee’s work to con­tin­ue with­out be­ing “over­shad­owed.” The PAAC al­so pre­pares a “Spe­cial Re­port” on her con­duct.

April 27, 2026: The PAAC re­sumes its work with­out John-Bates.

April 30, 2026: A Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was post­poned af­ter ques­tions were raised about the pres­ence of John-Bates on the Com­mit­tee. Con­cerns were ex­pressed by gov­ern­ment mem­bers ques­tion­ing if she would pol­lute the pro­ceed­ing.

May 1, 2026: Mo­ments be­fore the Up­per House be­gins de­bat­ing the PAAC re­port, Sen­a­tor John-Bates makes a per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion in the Sen­ate. She de­nies con­spir­ing to com­mit con­tempt of Par­lia­ment but of­fers an un­equiv­o­cal apol­o­gy and an­nounces she has of­fered her res­ig­na­tion to the PNM leader to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of the in­sti­tu­tion.