Padarath denies attack on parliamentary staff

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that he at­tempt­ed to in­tim­i­date par­lia­men­tary staff dur­ing last Fri­day’s chaot­ic Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing, in­sist­ing in­stead that his ac­tions were aimed at iden­ti­fy­ing in­di­vid­u­als linked to what he be­lieves is a pat­tern of bias against Gov­ern­ment MPs with­in Par­lia­ment.

The con­tro­ver­sy stems from an ex­plo­sive con­fronta­tion on Fri­day, when Padarath ac­cused par­lia­men­tary broad­cast­ing per­son­nel of de­lib­er­ate­ly mut­ing mi­cro­phones used by Gov­ern­ment MPs while main­tain­ing high­er au­dio lev­els for Op­po­si­tion mem­bers dur­ing pro­ceed­ings.

The is­sue es­ca­lat­ed amid al­le­ga­tions that Padarath left his seat and pho­tographed a par­lia­men­tary staff mem­ber whom he be­lieved was re­spon­si­ble for op­er­at­ing the au­dio sys­tem. The in­ci­dent was not vis­i­ble on the Par­lia­ment Chan­nel’s pub­lic broad­cast due to cam­era po­si­tion­ing, but quick­ly sparked crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion mem­bers and calls for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Par­lia­men­tary staffers have al­so de­nied the al­le­ga­tion, say­ing they re­main pro­fes­sion­al to both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath de­nied his ac­tions amount­ed to an at­tack on par­lia­men­tary staff.

“Usu­al­ly what hap­pens is when you take these mat­ters to the Broad­cast­ing Com­mit­tee or to any oth­er com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment, we are told that we have to iden­ti­fy who the per­sons are and what chal­lenges are be­ing al­leged against them. The on­ly way we can iden­ti­fy them, be­cause we don’t know the staff of the Par­lia­ment, was to take the pho­to­graph.”

Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue draw­ing at­ten­tion to what it be­lieves are long­stand­ing in­stances of bias with­in and out­side Par­lia­ment.

“Pol­i­tics is not a tea par­ty. The war is on, and the UNC will not roll over and play dead. We have en­dured this for far too long, and we are draw­ing at­ten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing in­side and out­side of Par­lia­ment and the bi­as­es that con­tin­ue to oc­cur,” he de­clared.

He al­so dis­missed calls by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment for a crim­i­nal probe in­to the in­ci­dent and in­stead sug­gest­ed scruti­ny should be di­rect­ed to­ward re­cent com­ments by PNM MP Ka­reem Mar­celle.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion MP for Port -of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, Stu­art Young, chal­lenged Padarath’s po­si­tion and ques­tioned the im­pli­ca­tions of his de­c­la­ra­tion.

“Bar­ry Padarath is telling the pop­u­la­tion that the war is on. Is it a war on pub­lic ser­vants? Is it a war on in­de­pen­dent par­lia­men­tary staff? That is the ques­tion that needs to be asked,” Young asked.

Young al­so re­ject­ed claims that mi­cro­phones were be­ing se­lec­tive­ly mut­ed, ex­plain­ing that par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure dic­tates that on­ly the mi­cro­phone of the mem­ber recog­nised by the chair re­mains ac­tive while oth­ers are mut­ed.

The con­tro­ver­sy has al­so prompt­ed re­spons­es from in­de­pen­dent voic­es and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, who have de­fend­ed the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and neu­tral­i­ty of par­lia­ment staff and called for re­straint from elect­ed of­fi­cials.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira warned that Par­lia­ment’s cred­i­bil­i­ty de­pends on main­tain­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in its im­par­tial­i­ty and cau­tioned against al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal bias be­fore any for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been con­duct­ed.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, for­mer UNC MP Rush­ton Paray said through­out his ten years in op­po­si­tion, he nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced dis­crim­i­na­tion from par­lia­men­tary of­fi­cers, de­scrib­ing them as among the most pro­fes­sion­al pub­lic ser­vants in the coun­try.