MPs to debate SoE effectiveness, rising murder toll in House

GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

More heat­ed de­bate is ex­pect­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Wednes­day as MPs turn their at­ten­tion to the ef­fec­tive­ness of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) and the ris­ing mur­der toll in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The House is al­so ex­pect­ed to con­sid­er a re­port on the con­tin­ued po­si­tion of a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment sen­a­tor on a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee.

The mat­ters are list­ed on the or­der pa­per for the sit­ting, which takes place ear­li­er in the week than the usu­al Fri­day sched­ule.

Op­po­si­tion PNM MPs Stu­art Young and Mar­vin Gon­za­les are due to ques­tion Min­is­ters Bar­ry Padarath, Dave Tan­coo, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Roger Alexan­der on a range of is­sues.

Gon­za­les’ ques­tions to Alexan­der fo­cus on the SoE and the Home In­va­sion (Stand Your Ground) law.

The ex­change fol­lows last Fri­day’s clash be­tween Gon­za­les and Padarath over the re­cruit­ment process for the CEO of the Main­te­nance, Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) and the ap­point­ment of Nicholas Khan­hai, with Gon­za­les again seek­ing writ­ten de­tails of the process and re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age.

Padarath, in re­sponse, ques­tioned the ap­point­ment of for­mer MTS CEO Lennox Rat­tans­ingh and de­fend­ed Khan­hai’s ex­pe­ri­ence, while al­so point­ing to what he de­scribed as in­con­sis­ten­cies in pre­vi­ous re­cruit­ment process­es.

Al­so on the or­der pa­per is a Spe­cial Re­port of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­cern­ing em­bat­tled PNM sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates and her con­tin­ued mem­ber­ship on the com­mit­tee, amid al­le­ga­tions linked to par­lia­men­tary work on a PAAC in­quiry.

Op­po­si­tion whip Gon­za­les has al­so filed a mo­tion seek­ing to have House Speak­er and PAAC chair­man Jagdeo Singh re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, though it was not tak­en up at last Fri­day’s sit­ting.

De­bate on the Pa­role Bill is al­so ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue.