Gail Alexan­der

Loud squab­bling took place be­tween front­line Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors yes­ter­day when the Gov­ern­ment failed to an­swer ques­tions on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's sis­ter Vid­watie New­ton. Two ques­tions on New­ton, filed by PNM sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds, saw At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and PNM's Faris Al-Rawi in a heat­ed de­bate.

Hinds had asked when the Prime Min­is­ter of­fered to pay ex­pens­es for New­ton to trav­el with her as an as­sis­tant. Hinds al­so sought an­swers on whether New­ton was em­ployed as a "live-in" per­son­al as­sis­tant at the of­fi­cial PM's res­i­dence and diplo­mat­ic cen­tre and if she func­tioned in this role when the Prime Min­is­ter stayed at the Gopauls' home in Tu­na­puna in 2010.

But Sen­ate leader Em­manuel George said he could not re­ply to Hinds' first ques­tion since an is­sue in­volv­ing New­ton was be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. He said it was there­fore in­ap­pro­pri­ate and not in the pub­lic in­ter­est to an­swer. Hinds said the Sen­ate did not know what was sent to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Gov­ern­ment could sim­ply be avoid­ing the query.

"I sus­pect he's hid­ing, as usu­al," Hinds added. He de­mand­ed a rul­ing from act­ing Sen­ate pres­i­dent Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, who said the Sen­ate would await the com­mis­sion's probe. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al loud­ly in­ter­ject­ed, "Re­port it to the Com­mis­sion!" While Ou­dit in­struct­ed Hinds to move to the next ques­tion, Al-Rawi re­peat­ed­ly ques­tioned Ou­dit on the com­mis­sion and ob­ject­ed to Gov­ern­ment's lack of an­swers.

This brought loud squab­bling by voic­es from both sides in­clud­ing the AG, who at­tempt­ed to re­ply while Al-Rawi al­so in­sist­ed on his stance, in­vok­ing par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege and ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of ob­fus­ca­tion. Ou­dit told Al-Rawi to be seat­ed sev­er­al times while the AG con­tin­ued. Al-Rawi, how­ev­er, de­mand­ed a rul­ing.

Ou­dit in­struct­ed both sides to move on to the next query. How­ev­er Al-Rawi, cit­ing May's Par­lia­men­tary Prac­tice, again sought a rul­ing. Ram­lo­gan shout­ed that the New­ton mat­ter was sub­ju­dice. "You don't know that? It be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion," he added.

Al-Rawi con­tin­ued to seek a rul­ing while Hinds sug­gest­ed a short break for the is­sue to be worked out. Ou­dit said she would ask the Clerk of the Sen­ate to get the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion on mat­ters be­fore a com­mis­sion. On the sec­ond ques­tion about New­ton, Ram­lo­gan again said the Gov­ern­ment could not an­swer, since that mat­ter was al­so be­fore the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, hav­ing been re­ferred there by the Op­po­si­tion.

He said that was well es­tab­lished and "quite trite" and it would be im­prop­er and prej­u­di­cial to an­swer the query which the Op­po­si­tion it­self had re­ferred to the Com­mis­sion. "And they know this," Ram­lo­gan added. Al-Rawi asked how come Gov­ern­ment had at one time an­swered ques­tions on the Gopaul is­sue when that was be­fore the Com­mis­sion. Hinds said the Gov­ern­ment had not an­swered any ques­tions on yes­ter­day's agen­da.