PNM women defend Penny’s handling of John-Bates matter

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Na­tion­al Women’s League has come out strong­ly in de­fence of Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, in­sist­ing she will de­cide the fu­ture of Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates “in due course,” while ac­cus­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of hypocrisy and po­lit­i­cal dis­trac­tion.

John-Bates re­turned to the Up­per House yes­ter­day af­ter a short leave of ab­sence due to ill­ness. How­ev­er, her fate is still un­known, de­spite of­fer­ing her res­ig­na­tion to Beck­les on May 1 over al­le­ga­tions tied to her con­duct on the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC).

In a state­ment is­sued dur­ing the Sen­ate sit­ting, the Women’s League dis­missed mount­ing crit­i­cism from Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath over Beck­les’ con­tin­ued si­lence on whether she will ac­cept John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion of­fer.

“The Na­tion­al Women’s League of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment stands solid­ly be­hind the de­ci­sion of Op­po­si­tion Leader, the Ho­n­ourable Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, to ig­nore the hys­te­ria the UNC is des­per­ate­ly try­ing to cre­ate around the com­po­si­tion of the Op­po­si­tion’s Sen­ate bench,” the group stat­ed.

The group al­so took di­rect aim at Padarath, re­fer­ring to him as “Lit­tle Bar­ry the Butch­er” and de­clar­ing, “Cock­roach have no place in fowl busi­ness.”

Padarath re­cent­ly took aim at Beck­les, ac­cus­ing her of cow­ardice and poor lead­er­ship for not de­cid­ing on John-Bates’ fu­ture. He al­so ac­cused Beck­les of hypocrisy in rais­ing con­cerns about ques­tion­able char­ac­ters on the Gov­ern­ment bench, point­ing in­stead to al­leged mis­con­duct un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

But the Women’s League de­fend­ed Beck­les’ han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion.

“Mrs Beck­les has served Trinidad and To­ba­go with dig­ni­ty, dis­tinc­tion and un­ques­tion­able pro­fes­sion­al­ism for decades. Her lead­er­ship has been mea­sured, re­spon­si­ble and prin­ci­pled, and she has proven her­self fit for pur­pose- both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly,” the state­ment read.

The group ar­gued that Beck­les had al­ready act­ed de­ci­sive­ly by re­mov­ing John-Bates from the PAAC weeks ago, al­low­ing par­lia­men­tary work to con­tin­ue un­in­ter­rupt­ed.

The Women’s League main­tained that de­ter­min­ing whether John-Bates should re­main on the Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate bench will not be rushed by Gov­ern­ment.

“The mat­ter of who con­tin­ues to sit on the Op­po­si­tion’s Sen­ate bench is en­tire­ly sep­a­rate, though re­lat­ed; and may be con­sid­ered in due course, ac­cord­ing to the prop­er process­es of par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy, not based on the ar­ti­fi­cial ur­gency the Prime Min­is­ter is des­per­ate­ly try­ing to pro­mote,” the state­ment added.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so sought to turn the spot­light back on­to the UNC, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of moral in­con­sis­ten­cy while rais­ing sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sies in­volv­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Bar­ry Padarath should busy him­self an­swer­ing the se­ri­ous ques­tions and al­le­ga­tions that con­tin­ue to trail him, in­clud­ing the un­re­solved mat­ter, where $703,000 was re­port­ed to have been de­posit­ed in­to a rel­a­tive’s RBC ac­count,” the group stat­ed.

The Women’s League fur­ther called on Padarath to help ex­plain “the $4 bil­lion in con­tracts which are un­der se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, in ad­di­tion to the $100 mil­lion Land­mark­TT fi­as­co.”

It al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment bench­es of har­bour­ing “vile and ob­scene el­e­ments,” ref­er­enc­ing the “Room 201” and “false pa­pers” scan­dals un­der the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The Na­tion­al Women’s League re­mains res­olute in our un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, and will not be dis­tract­ed by UNC’s at­tempts to baf­fle the pop­u­la­tion with pro­pa­gan­da, noise and po­lit­i­cal vul­gar­i­ty,” the state­ment con­clud­ed.

Janelle John-Bates was re­moved from the PAAC fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­prop­er con­duct for as­sist­ing a wit­ness, for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, in edit­ing his wit­ness state­ment ahead of his ap­pear­ance be­fore the com­mit­tee.

Both John-Bates and PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi are be­fore the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges for the PAAC in­ci­dent. Both have de­nied any wrong­do­ing.