Faris criticised as PNM weighs response to PAAC dispute

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

A Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stal­wart has crit­i­cised Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, ac­cus­ing him of fail­ing to prop­er­ly guide fel­low sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, as ques­tions con­tin­ue to mount over her fu­ture in the Up­per House.

John-Bates was re­moved from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) on April 16, two days af­ter con­cerns arose over the al­leged edit­ing of a wit­ness state­ment by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh ahead of his ap­pear­ance be­fore the com­mit­tee.

The PAAC is cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing the pro­cure­ment and im­por­ta­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, as it seeks to un­cov­er what it has de­scribed as “un­fair trade prac­tices.”

PNM stal­wart Ash­ton Ford ar­gued that while John-Bates is new to Par­lia­ment, greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with more ex­pe­ri­enced fig­ures.

“My is­sue is with Faris Al-Rawi. He has un­der­per­formed, and this adds to that record. Hav­ing served as at­tor­ney gen­er­al and as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for years, he should have ad­vised the young sen­a­tor against that course of ac­tion,” Ford said.

While Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has re­quest­ed re­ports from both John-Bates and Al-Rawi, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that no de­ci­sion has yet been tak­en.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said John-Bates is not with­out fault, not­ing that the sit­u­a­tion sug­gests a clear con­flict of in­ter­est and could car­ry le­gal im­pli­ca­tions.

“It could amount to mis­con­duct if it is legal­ly chal­lenged. The Op­po­si­tion Leader would be well ad­vised to al­so con­sid­er re­mov­ing her from the Sen­ate,” Ram­per­sad said.

Ref­er­enc­ing John-Bates’ pro­fes­sion as an at­tor­ney, Ram­per­sad added that the mat­ter al­so rais­es eth­i­cal con­cerns with­in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty.

“There are codes of ethics that re­quire at­tor­neys to up­hold the high­est stan­dards of in­tegri­ty,” she said, not­ing that she is al­so an at­tor­ney.

Ram­per­sad added that while Al-Rawi’s ac­tions may be viewed as less se­ri­ous, giv­en that he is not a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee, he should still face a strong rep­ri­mand.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James placed greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on Deyals­ingh, ar­gu­ing that he was the one who “put her in per­il.”

While agree­ing that a con­flict of in­ter­est ex­ists, James said Al-Rawi should be re­moved, while John-Bates could be shown some le­nien­cy as a first-time par­lia­men­tar­i­an.

“He had suf­fi­cient ex­pe­ri­ence to have ad­vised her dif­fer­ent­ly. He is the one who should be re­moved from the Sen­ate,” James said.

“This is some­one new to pol­i­tics. We may be too quick to con­demn her. It may be too dras­tic to re­move her en­tire­ly. The PNM could re­con­sid­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly if there is a prop­er apol­o­gy,” he added.

James al­so sug­gest­ed that such sit­u­a­tions are not un­com­mon in pol­i­tics, not­ing that in this in­stance, John-Bates was sim­ply ex­posed.