Beckles: Govt ‘bullying’ its way through Parliament

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing its par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty to rush ma­jor leg­is­la­tion through Par­lia­ment with­out ad­e­quate scruti­ny, con­sul­ta­tion or pub­lic de­bate.

In a state­ment is­sued as Par­lia­ment meets to­day, Beck­les raised con­cerns about si­mul­ta­ne­ous de­bates tak­ing place in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate, ar­gu­ing that the arrange­ment makes it dif­fi­cult for the Op­po­si­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, the me­dia and the pub­lic to prop­er­ly fol­low both pro­ceed­ings.

She de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as part of what she sees as an ero­sion of par­lia­men­tary and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tices un­der the Gov­ern­ment.

“Cit­i­zens must note that the Op­po­si­tion, the In­de­pen­dent Sen­ate Bench, the me­dia and the en­tire na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty can­not fol­low two de­bates at once,” Beck­les said.

Her com­ments come as the Gov­ern­ment moves ahead with de­bates on two ma­jor pieces of leg­is­la­tion, amend­ments to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act in the Low­er House and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill in the Sen­ate.

Beck­les claimed the Gov­ern­ment was in­tro­duc­ing sig­nif­i­cant leg­is­la­tion while giv­ing the pub­lic in­suf­fi­cient time to ex­am­ine the pro­posed changes.

“Leg­is­la­tion is be­ing brought to Par­lia­ment with no con­sul­ta­tion, de­spite what they promised, and with no time for prop­er de­lib­er­a­tion,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader was par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal of the pro­posed pro­cure­ment amend­ments, claim­ing they would al­low greater min­is­te­r­i­al spend­ing with­out suf­fi­cient safe­guards.

The amend­ments pro­pose sev­er­al changes to the coun­try’s pub­lic pro­cure­ment frame­work, in­clud­ing ex­pand­ing cat­e­gories of State pro­cure­ment that would fall out­side some of the Act’s nor­mal re­quire­ments and chang­ing as­pects of the over­sight and chal­lenge process.

The Gov­ern­ment has de­fend­ed the pro­posed changes, ar­gu­ing that re­form is need­ed to make the pro­cure­ment sys­tem more ef­fi­cient and al­low the State to gov­ern ef­fec­tive­ly.

Beck­les al­so raised con­cerns about the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, which is be­ing de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate af­ter be­ing passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for spe­cial op­er­a­tions with­in des­ig­nat­ed polic­ing dis­tricts and al­lows for mea­sures in­clud­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of closed ar­eas, cur­fews, cor­dons, check­points and search­es un­der spec­i­fied cir­cum­stances.

Beck­les ar­gued that con­cerns raised about the leg­is­la­tion should re­ceive ad­e­quate con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary process.

She al­so crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for be­ing out­side the coun­try while the leg­is­la­tion is be­ing de­bat­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is cur­rent­ly in New York for the 81st Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, where she de­liv­ered Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al state­ment on Tues­day.

Beck­les may al­so be out of the coun­try, as she is al­so in New York for UN­GA week.

Beck­les fur­ther ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of avoid­ing ques­tions from the me­dia and be­ing ab­sent from par­lia­men­tary sit­tings.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so al­leged that com­mu­ni­ties rep­re­sent­ed by the PNM were be­ing dis­ad­van­taged in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of wa­ter, grants, ba­sic ameni­ties and jobs. She pro­vid­ed no sup­port­ing ev­i­dence for those al­le­ga­tions in the state­ment.

Beck­les said the Op­po­si­tion be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment’s 28-seat ma­jor­i­ty in the House is be­ing used to push leg­is­la­tion through Par­lia­ment with­out suf­fi­cient re­gard for es­tab­lished par­lia­men­tary prac­tices.

“This UNC Gov­ern­ment has bul­lied the con­sti­tu­tion­al process­es, erod­ed pub­lic trust, de­stroyed de­mo­c­ra­t­ic best prac­tices and dis­re­gard­ed par­lia­men­tary best prac­tices,” Beck­les said.